The boy who has been nurtured on tales of fancy and who trusts to things to work out for the best of their own accord will generally fall into ways of cheerfulness and contentment. He will play the game of life out with more of heart and courage, and less of doubt and fear. He may be something of an impractical dreamer, but he will be kind and true. He will not aim to understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but will aim to make people happy rather than learned. His early experience of the feelings of pity and terror will refine his emotions as much as it did in the age of Thespias those of the Greek youth. In other words, his early familiarity with fairy tales, whether learned by word of mouth from his father, his nurse, or his teacher, will set his face in the right direction. And to keep it so turned he will of necessity have to build up a fairy library. What that library might contain and what he should know as a perfect lesson must now be considered. A sense of fitness rather than a feeling of loyalty to the language points to the English fairy and household tales as the ones with which to begin. If the teacher has a folk-lore curiosity and interest which aid him in giving these fairy tales to the children, that is well and good. But this historic view is by no means so important as it is to know thoroughly the tales themselves and to enter into an appreciation of them with a keen and boyish interest. The present concern is with a limited number of stories that are so wholly good and so very necessary to the child that he should come to know them completely. Then from this beginning the boy can wander at his own sweet will and keep friends with Jacobs, Perrault, Grimm, Andersen, and, last of all and no doubt best of all, "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." But from all of these the rude vigour, the dramatic directness, and above all the playful humour of the English tales will first captivate him. They have not quite the grace, simplicity, and elegance of the French tales, nor the more fanciful and romantic touches of the German tales; yet, as Mr. Jacobs has told us, "They have the quality of going home to English children. The English folk-muse wears homespun and plods afoot, albeit with a cheerful smile and a steady gaze."