



Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Anne Storer and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





Transcriber's Note: [=o] = macron above letter

       *       *       *       *       *




 BOYS AND GIRLS BOOKSHELF

     _A Practical Plan of Character Building_

          COMPLETE IN SEVENTEEN VOLUMES

 I     Fun and Thought for Little Folk
 II    Folk-Lore, Fables, and Fairy Tales
 III   Famous Tales and Nature Stories
 IV    Things to Make and Things to Do
 V     True Stories from Every Land
 VI    Famous Songs and Picture Stories
 VII   Nature and Outdoor Life, Part I
 VIII  Nature and Outdoor Life, Part II
 IX    Earth, Sea, and Sky
 X     Games and Handicraft
 XI    Wonders of Invention
 XII   Marvels of Industry
 XIII  Every Land and its Story
 XIV   Famous Men and Women
 XV    Bookland--Story and Verse, Part I
 XVI   Bookland--Story and Verse, Part II
 XVII  Graded and Classified Index


             THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY
                  INCORPORATED
                   _New York_




 [Illustration: THE SUNSET FAIRIES
 FROM A DRAWING BY FLORENCE MARY ANDERSON]




                 BOYS AND GIRLS
                    BOOKSHELF

     _A Practical Plan of Character Building_

              Little Folks' Section

  [Illustration: INSTRUCTIVE PLAY... VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
                 The Four Fold Life
                 MENTAL  PHYSICAL  SOCIAL  MORAL]

        Prepared Under the Supervision of
  THE EDITORIAL BOARD _of the_ UNIVERSITY SOCIETY

                   Volume II
       FOLK-LORE, FABLES, AND FAIRY TALES

             THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY
                  INCORPORATED
                   _New York_




              Copyright, 1920, By
          THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY INC.

           Copyright, 1912, 1915, By
          THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY INC.


        _Manufactured in the U. S. A._




INTRODUCTION


This volume is devoted to a choice collection of the standard and
new fairy-tales, wonder stories, and fables. They speak so truly and
convincingly for themselves that we wish to use this introductory page
only to emphasize their value to young children. There are still those
who find no room in their own reading, and would give none in the
reading of the young, except for facts. They confuse facts and truth,
and forget that there is a world of truth that is larger than the mere
facts of life, being compact of imagination and vision and ideals. Dr.
Hamilton Wright Mabie convinced us of this in his cogent words.

"America," he said, "has at present greater facility in producing
'smart' men than in producing able men; the alert, quick-witted
money-maker abounds, but the men who live with ideas, who care for the
principles of things, and who make life rich in resource and interest,
are comparatively few. America needs poetry more than it needs
industrial training, though the two ought never to be separated. The
time to awaken the imagination, which is the creative faculty, is early
childhood, and the most accessible material for this education is the
literature which the race created in its childhood."

The value of the fairy-tale and the wonder-tale is that they tell about
the magic of living. Like the old woman in Mother Goose, they "brush
the cobwebs out of the sky." They enrich, not cheapen, life. Plenty of
things do cheapen life for children. Most movies do. Sunday comic
supplements do. Ragtime songs do. Mere gossip does. But fairy stories
enhance life.

They are called "folk-tales," that is, tales of the common folk. They
were largely the dreams of the poor. They consist of fancies that have
illumined the hard facts of life. They find animals, trees, flowers,
and the stars friendly. They speak of victory. In them the child is
master even of dragons. He can live like a prince, in disguise, or,
if he be uncomely, he may hope to win Beauty after he is free of his
masquerade.

Wonder-stories help make good children as well as happy children.
In these stories witches, wolves, and evil persons are defeated or
exposed. Fairy godmothers are ministers of justice. The side that the
child wishes to triumph always does triumph, and so goodness always is
made to seem worth-while.

Almost every fairy-tale contains a test of character or shrewdness or
courage. Sharp distinctions are made, that require a child of parts to
discern.

And the heroes of these nursery tales are much more convincing than
precepts or golden texts, for they impress upon the child not merely
what he ought to do, but what nobly has been done. And the small
hero-worshiper will follow where his admirations lead.

Fables do much the same, and by imagining that the animals have arrived
at human speech and wisdom, they help the child to think shrewdly and
in a friendly way, as if in comradeship with his pets and with our
brothers and sisters, the beasts of the field and forest.


       *       *       *       *       *




 CONTENTS
                                                  PAGE

 INTRODUCTION                                      vii


 #THE OLD FAIRY TALES#

  THE ROAD TO FAIRY LAND                             2
    By Cecil Cavendish
  THE BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS GOLDENLOCKS                 3
  PRINCE HYACINTH AND THE DEAR LITTLE PRINCESS       7
    By Madame Leprince De Beaumont
  CINDERELLA                                        10
    By Charles Perrault
  THE SLEEPING BEAUTY                               13
    Adapted from the Brothers Grimm
  BEAUTY AND THE BEAST                              15
  PRINCE DARLING                                    20
  RUMPELSTILTSKIN                                   26
    Adapted from the