Produced by Chuck Greif, Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net CONTES ET LÉGENDES 1ÈRE PARTIE PAR H. A. GUERBER AUTEUR DE "MYTHS OF GREECE AND ROME" NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY DÉDIÉ À Roger et Marguerite PREFACE. This little collection of Legends and Fairy Tales is intended merely as an introduction to general French reading. The stories have been told as simply as possible, with infinite repetition of the same words and idioms to enable the pupil to obtain a good vocabulary almost unconsciously. They have also been narrated as graphically as practicable to arouse an interest in the plot, to stimulate curiosity, and thereby induce the pupil to read to the end. With the exception of the first tale of the series, for which I have purposely selected the common nursery story, "The Three Bears," I have carefully avoided the tales which are most familiar, or have given them in some unusual version, so that only by knowing the meaning of the words the sense of the story can be obtained. This method has been used with most gratifying results with pupils of all ages either with or without the accompaniment of a grammar, and it is very gradual, to facilitate rapid progress in the language. Of course, the results to be achieved depend greatly upon the instructor, but I have found that where daily lessons were the rule, the pupils, at the end of a very short time, were able to read simple histories and novels at sight with much pleasure and profit. My own method, which, however, varies greatly according to the age and the intelligence of the pupils, is, roughly outlined, as follows, taking the first paragraph of this work as an example: The first sentence is read plainly by the teacher or written on the blackboard, and as these stories are intended to be used from the very first lesson, each word is translated into English. Then the pupils read the sentence in turn, supplying the translation of the words as they are rapidly pointed out. A few moments' work of this kind suffices with average pupils to enable them to memorize the words so that they can reproduce them verbally or in writing, when the book is shut or after they have been rubbed off the board. The next sentence is treated in the same way, the pupils translating the words previously given and the instructor giving the meaning _of the new words only_. Then making use of the first idiomatic expression "il y avait," an explanation is given, showing how it can be changed into the interrogative form "y avait-il?" and the pupils are questioned rapidly as follows, using only the words already mastered: "Y avait-il un ours?" "Y avait-il deux ours?" "Y avait-il trois ours?" "Y avait-il un grand ours?" "Y avait-il un petit ours?" "Y avait-il un ours de grandeur moyenne?" The answers are all given in French, as quickly as possible, ere the second sentence is written from memory.