espect to Lamb it must be said
that Lamb is not living in this scientific day of discovery of the
child's personality and of accurate attention to the child's needs.
Because the _Odyssey_ is a great book and will give much to any child
does not prove at all that the same child would not be better off by
reading it when his interests reach its life. This outlook on the
problem would eliminate the necessity of having the classics rewritten
from a new moral viewpoint, which is becoming a custom now-a-days, and
which is to be frowned upon, for it deprives the literature of much of
its vigor and force.

II. THE FAIRY TALE AS LITERATURE

From the point of view of the child, we have seen that in a subjective
sense, fairy tales must contain the interests of children. In an
objective sense, rather from the point of view of literature, let us
now consider what fairy tales must contain, what are the main
standards which determine the value of fairy tales as 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
folk-tale 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 pa