The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Study of Fairy Tales, by Laura F. Kready,
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Title: A Study of Fairy Tales

Author: Laura F. Kready

Release Date: October 7, 2004 [eBook #13666]
[Date last updated: August 21, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY OF FAIRY TALES***

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A STUDY OF FAIRY TALES

by

LAURA F. KREADY, B.S.

With an Introduction by Henry Suzzallo, Ph.D.
President of the University of Washington, Seattle

TO THE CHILDREN WHO, BECAUSE OF IT, MAY RECEIVE ANY GOOD.

PREFACE

One of the problems of present-day education is to secure for the
entire school system, from the kindergarten to the university, a
curriculum which shall have a proved and permanent value. In this
curriculum literature has established itself as a subject of
unquestioned worth. But children's literature, as that distinct
portion of the subject literature written especially for children or
especially suited to them, is only beginning to take shape and form.
It seems necessary at this time to work upon the content of children's
literature to see what is worthy of a permanent place in the child's
English, and to dwell upon its possibilities. A consideration of this
subject has convinced me of three points:

(1) that literature in the kindergarten and elementary
school should be taught as a distinct subject, accessory
neither to reading nor to any other subject of the
curriculum, though intimately related to them;

(2) that it takes training in the subject to teach
literature to little children;

(3) that the field of children's literature is largely
untilled, inviting laborers, embracing literature which
should be selected from past ages down to the present.

A single _motif_ of this children's literature, _Fairy Tales_, is here
presented, with the aim of organizing this small portion of the
curriculum for the child of five, six, or seven years, in the
kindergarten and the first grade. The purpose has