presenting as many themes, as many interests, as many emotions as
possible, characteristic specimens of the most important authors for
children, of all the civilizations that have produced literatures
which have become a part of the English-speaking child's heritage.
The collection contains literature for the little child and
literature for the boy or girl in the early 'teens, and it ranges
from primitive times down to this present decade. Moreover, since a
considerable part of the body of children's literature is made up of
original selections made over for children, a few masterpieces of
translations, re-tellings, abridgments, and reproductions have been
included.

The editor hopes that he has allotted a proportionate and equitable
amount of space and emphasis to each type, department, and section of
the collection. He had it in mind, at least, to give as many pages
over to poetry, for example, in proportion to prose, as many pages to
fairy stories, for example, in proportion to myths, as would indicate
roughly the average child's interests. If this proportion is not due
and just, as the editor sometimes fears, it is to be hoped that
critics will realize the web of difficulties in which such a task as
this is entangled.

A word as to the classification and nomenclature. The editor realizes
that this is neither original nor accurate. It is certainly not
scientific, as the types overlap here and there, and the names are
based partly on form and partly on content. But classification and
class names were indispensable in a book of this nature, and it
seemed a better policy to employ the classification and the names
already firmly established in common use than to attempt to subject
to a new system of scientific terms that which is by nature not