The old tale will not always be perfect literature; often it will be
imperfect, especially in form. Yet the tale should be selected with
the standards of literature guiding in the estimate of its worth and
in the emphasis to be placed upon its content. Such relating of the
tale to literary standards would make it quite impossible later in the
primary grades when teaching the reading of _Three Pigs_, to put the
main stress on a mere external like the expression of the voice. A
study of the story as literature would have centered the attention on
the situation, the characters, and the plot. If the voice is receiving
training in music and in the phonics of spelling, then when the
reading of the tale is undertaken it will be a willing servant to the
mind which is concentrating on the reality, and will express what the
thought compels.

The fairy tale first must be a classic in reality even if it lacks the
crowning touch of perfect form given through the re-treatment of a
literary artist. In _Reynard the Fox_ we have an exact example of the
folk-tale that has been elevated into literature. But this was
possible only because the tales originally possessed the qualities of
a true classic. "A true classic," Sainte-Beuve has said, "is one which
enriches the human mind, has increased its treasure and caused it to
advance a step, which has discovered some moral and unequivocal truth
or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known
and discovered; which is an expression of thought, observation, or
invention, in no matter what form, only provided it be broad and
great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in itself; which
speaks in its own peculiar style which is found to be also that of the
whole world, a style new and old, easily contemporary with all time."
Immediately some of the great fairy tales stand out as answering to