Front Matter

Foreword

From a knowledge and love of children both extending through many years, I wish to speak of the pleasure and profit they will derive from reading and possessing Merry Tales. 

To keep children sane and sweet they must be given bright and cheery stories to read. They will find them in Merry Tales.  Early in life they should learn something of myths and folklore. These tales are founded on these old treasures, but are charmingly adapted tot he understanding of present-day children. I have read few books for children possessing such literary value and yet using words that children can master without difficulty, thereby being able to enjoy their own reading.

I hope that Merry Tales  will find a place not only in the schoolroom for that time of delight in a well-taught school,—"that period for supplementary reading,"—but that parents may find the book out to place it in the child's own library, a thing that a child must have if it is ever to have in later life the joys of a genuine booklover.

Preface

The stories in this collection have been chosen, first, because they are stories children have always loved, and second, because they are free from much of the grewsome or grotesque which figures in so many of the folk tales and fables of the past. Although there are elements of surprise and danger in the adventures of the various characters, yet each story ends happily. The little book is intended as a supplementary reader for children in the third or fourth year of school and the vocabulary has been carefully graded to meet that need. Some of the stories have dramatic qualities and will be found to lend themselves readily to dramatization.