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38 literature, and as such, subject-matter of real worth to the child.

The old tale will not always be perfect literature; often it will be imperfect, especially in form. Yet the tale should be selected with the standards of literature guiding in the estimate of its worth and in the emphasis to be placed upon its content. Such relating of the tale to literary standards would make it quite impossible later in the primary grades when teaching the reading of Three Pigs, to put the main stress on a mere external like the expression of the voice. A study of the story as literature would have centered the attention on the situation, the characters, and the plot. If the voice is receiving training in music and in the phonics of spelling, then when the reading of the tale is undertaken it will be a willing servant to the mind which is concentrating on the reality, and will express what the thought compels.

The fairy tale first must be a classic in reality even if it lacks the crowning touch of perfect form given through the re-treatment of a literary artist. In Reynard the Fox we have an exact example of the folktale that has been elevated into literature. But this was possible only because the tales originally possessed the qualities of a true classic. "A true classic," Sainte-Beuve has said, "is one which enriches the human mind, has increased its treasure and caused it to advance a step, which has discovered some moral and unequivocal truth or revealed some eternal