THE good fortune which has attended the earlier edition of this book
is a proof that there is less occasion now than formerly to plead the
cause of fables for use in elementary schools. And yet their value
is still too little recognized. The homely wisdom, which the fables
represent so aptly, was a more common possession of intelligent people
of a generation or two ago than it is at the present time. It had
then a better chance of being passed on by natural tradition than
is now the case among the less homogeneous parentage of our school
children. And there has never been a greater need than now for the
kind of seed-sowing for character that is afforded by this means. As
in the troubled times in Greece in Æsop’s day, twenty-five centuries
ago, moral teaching to be salutary must be largely shorn of didactic
implications and veiled with wit and satire. This insures its most
vital working wherever its teaching is pertinent. To be whipped,
warned, shamed, or encouraged, and so corrected, over the heads of
animals as they are represented in the expression of their native
traits, is the least offensive way that can fall to a person’s lot.
Among several hundred episodes, knowledge of which is acquired in
childhood as a part of an educational routine, most conservative
estimates would allow for large, substantial results in practical wit
and wisdom, to be reaped as later life calls for them.
It is well recognized by scholars, and should be taught to children,
that not all the fables attributed to Æsop are of so early a date.
Imitations of his genius all along the centuries have masqueraded under
his name. Facts about him appear in the Introduction.
No occasion has been found to change in this edition the style of
presentation so highly approved in the original one; but, as a
considerable number of the stories, especially in the earlier pages
of the book, are amplified somewhat in language form to accommodate
them to the needs of children unfamiliar with the animals portrayed,
it has been thought wise to present these in the briefer form in which
they are generally known to adult readers. These are to be found in
an Appendix to the present volume. The ingenious teacher will find
numerous ways in which this duplication of stories may be turned to
account. Comparison of the two forms will suggest many exercises to
be performed by the pupils themselves, in which the longer forms of
the fables may be built up from the shorter forms, and vice versa. The
teacher who is interested in dramatic work will find also that many of
the fables will make excellent material for dramatic presentation in
the classroom.