bout 300
B.C. and Phaedrus about 30 A.D., made versions of fables ascribed to
AEsop. Many writers in the Middle Ages brought together increasing
numbers of fables under AEsop's name and enlarged upon the few
traditional facts in Herodotus about AEsop himself until several hundred
fables and an elaborate biography of the supposed author were in
existence. Joseph Jacobs said he had counted as many as 700 different
fables going under AEsop's name. The number included in a present-day
book of AEsop usually varies from 200 to 350. Another name associated
with the making of fables is that of Bidpai (or Pilpay), said to have
been a philosopher attached to the court of some oriental king. Bidpai,
a name which means "head scholar," is a more shadowy figure even than
AEsop. What we can be sure of is that there were two centers, Greece and
India, from which fables were diffused. Whether they all came originally
from a single source, and, if so, what that source was, are questions
still debated by scholars.

_Modern fabulists._ Modern fables are no more possible than a new Mother
Goose or a new fairy story. For modern times the method of the fable is
"at once too simple and too roundabout. Too roundabout; for the truths
we have to tell we prefer to speak out directly and not by way of
allegory. And the truths the fable has to teach are too simple to
correspond to the facts in our complex civilization." No modern fabulist
has duplicated in his field the success of Hans Christian Andersen in
the field of the nursery story. A few fables from La Fontaine, a few
from Krylov, one or two each from Gay, Cowper, Yriarte, and Lessing may
be used to good advantage with children. The general broadening of
literary variety has, of course, given us in recent times many valuable
stories of the symbolistic kind. Suggestive parable-like or allegorical
stories, such as a few of Hawthorne's in _Twice Told Tales_ and _Mosses
from an Old Manse_, or a few of Tolstoy's short tales, are simple enough
for children.

_The use of fables in school._ Not all fables are good for educational
purposes. There is, however, plenty of room for choice, and those that
present points of view no longer accepted by the modern world should be
eliminated from the list. Objections based on the unreality of the
fables, their "unnatural natural history," are hardly valid. Rousseau's
elimination of fables from his scheme of education in _Emile_ is based
on this objection and