een the constant aim of the writer.

The books contain, too, many beautiful selections translated from
foreign languages and made fresh, attractive and inspiring. Many of the
old fables and folk stories have been rewritten, but others which have
existed long in good form have been left untouched. In the great
masterpieces no liberties have been taken with the text without making
known the fact, and in every case the most reliable edition has been
followed. It is hoped that children will have nothing to "unlearn" from
the reading of these books.

There are not a few old things in the set that are really new, because
they have heretofore been inaccessible to children except in musty books
not likely to be met.

This is no haphazard collection made hastily, and largely at the
suggestion of others. Everything in the books has been read and reread
by the writer. True, he has availed himself of the help of others, and
to many his obligations are deep and lasting; but in the end the
responsibility for selection and for the quantity and quality of the
helps is wholly his.

_2. Arrangement and Grading_

The contents of the books have been graded from the nursery rhymes in
the first volume to the rather difficult selections in the ninth volume.
In the arrangement, however, not all the simplest reading is in the
first volume. It might be better understood if we say that one volume
overlaps another, so that, for instance, the latter part of the first
volume is more difficult than the first part of the second volume. When
a child is able to read in the third volume he will find something to
interest him in all the volumes.

What has been said, however, does not wholly explain the system of
arrangement. Fiction, poetry, essays, biography, nature-study, science
and history are all fairly represented in the selections, but no book is
given over exclusively to any subject. Rather is it so arranged that the
child who reads by course will traverse nearly every subject in every
volume, and to him the different subjects will be presented logically in
the order in which his growing mind demands them. We might say that as
he reads from volume to volume, he travels in an ever widening and
rising spiral. The fiction of the first volume consists of fables, fairy
tales and folk stories; the poetry of nursery rhymes and children's
verses; the biography of anecdotal sketches of Field and Stevenson; and
history is suggested in the quaintly