As to the modern fables, I fear they will yield us but a scanty harvest. The fables of La Fontaine, where they depart from AEsopian originals, are hardly suitable for children, and those of the German poet Gellert impress me, on the whole, in the same way, though a few of them may be added to our stock. For instance, the fable of the Greenfinch and the Nightingale. These two birds occupy the same cage before the window of Damon's house. Presently the voice of the nightingale is heard, and then ceases. The father leads his little boy before the cage and asks him which of the two he believes to have been the sweet musician, the brightly colored greenfinch or the outwardly unattractive nightingale. The child immediately points to the former, and is then instructed as to his error. The lesson, of course, is that fine clothes and real worth do not always go together. The fable of the Blind and the Lame Man teaches the advantages of co-operation. The Carriage Horse and the Cart Horse is a fable for the rich. Possibly the fable of the Peasant and his Son, which is directed against lies of exaggeration, may also be utilized, though I realize that there are objections to it. FOOTNOTE: [10] Buddhist Birth Stories; or Jataka Tales. IX. STORIES FROM THE BIBLE. _Introduction._--It will have been noticed that in choosing our illustrative material we have confined ourselves to what may be called classical literature. The German _Maerchen_ has lived in the traditions of the German people for centuries, and is as fresh to-day as Snow-white herself when she woke from her trance. The fables, as has been shown, have been adopted into the language and literature of Persia, of Arabia, of the nations of Europe, and are still found in the hands of our own children. Let us continue to pursue the same method of selection. Instead of relying on juvenile literature just produced, or attempting to write moralizing stories specially adapted for the purpose in hand, let us continue, without excluding invention altogether, to rely mainly on that which has stood the test of time. In the third part of our primary course we shall use selected stories from the classical literature of the Hebrews, and later on from that of Greece, particularly the Odyssey and the Iliad. The stories to which I refer possess a perennial vitality, an indestructible charm. I am, I trust, no blind worshiper of antiquity. The mere fact that a thing has existed for a thousand or two thousand years is not always proof that it is worth preserving. But the fact that after having been repeated for two thousand years a story still possesses a perfectly fresh attraction for the child of to-day, does indeed prove that there is in it something of imperishable worth. How is this unique charm of the classical literature to be explained? What quality exists in Homer, in the Bible, enabling them, despite the changes of taste and fashion, to hold their own? The