As fairy tales have a common plot in many languages, so has there been a common way of preserving and transmitting them. This has been by oral tradition. They were originally to be given by word of mouth, a method that is yet best fitted to curious children. The teacher must give them through the ear, if they are to be learned and retained. Whenever it is possible in doing this, he must not forget to start with the pleasant beginning, "once upon a time," nor yet to omit the best of all conclusions, "and all went well ever afterwards"--neglecting, of course, to add that truism for grown-ups, "that didn't go ill." In this practice of giving a few choice tales through the ear is the preparation for the time when a boy will eagerly thumb a favourite volume of his own in some quiet nook. But a few of the better tales must first have been mastered so that they can be told with dramatic directness. Here then the same practice must hold that is followed in all reading: do not overread. A few stories are to be well learned and a few books to be owned, but only a few. If the boy once comes to feel his strength from a limited number of good stories, the made-to-order story for the fellow with the curls will never appeal to him. What he knows he will know and be glad to know. If it be presumption to select a limited list of stories by grades when the world is so full of stories, it must be presumption. There are stories that can have no substitutes until the world has had another accumulated experience of some hundreds of years of fireside lore. The list that follows has been found good for a limited list, yet as complete a one as a child can master. No apology need be offered for the insertion of Ruskin's great story or the two stories of jungle life by Kipling. They are modern, but form a good bridge to modern books that have real merit. A boy who will not read "Red Dog" with an interest on fire had better grow weak on a Rollo book. His taste is surely to be lamented. He will early fall in love and later fall into cynicism.