range, by showing that Folk-lore is the parent of science, but not of art or handicraft. In like manner Mr. Nutt, (though he includes handicrafts,) seeks to learn from the study of Folk-lore the beginnings of philosophy, of worship, of law, of medical science, of history, of wit and humour, of poetry, and romance, of [music and] the drama.[1] A grand classification of results, though impossible, as it seems to me, as a classification of records.
However, the classification of results, and the whole question of the harvest which we may hope to reap from the study of Folk-lore, are matter for others. What concerns me, is to plead that the principles of classification laid down for the collector may be made as clear and simple as possible, and may not involve the use of peculiar technical words, or of words used in a sense other than the ordinary and accepted one. A Folk-lore collector is not likely in the nature of things to be a person of very high intellectual ability or much literary skill. The chief qualifications of a good collector are observation, curiosity, quick sympathy, the gift of winning confidence, the habit of simple friendly intercourse with the uneducated folk among whom his lot may be cast: things not always to be found combined with student-tastes or remarkable mental powers. Now, it requires some consideration before an average mind can decide whether any given item is a religious ceremony or a religious usage, whether another should be classed as an omen or an augury, before he can discover that asking the rider of a piebald horse to prescribe for the whooping-cough is a "medical recipe" (or can it be a "social usage"?), and can resolve to set down a ghost-story or a local-historical tradition under the head of Poesy. Whereas any one knows what a proverb is, or a ballad, or a game, a narrative, a "superstition," or a "cure"; things not easily defined—some of them—but easily recognisable; and any intelligent person can arrange such items in their proper places if the pigeon-holes are prepared to fit the matter that is to fill
- ↑ In connection with folk-music the following is not without interest:—"It is here observed, as a rather curious fact, that exceptional musical talent is by no means confined to the children of better parentage; the boy of lowest birth will often enough be the best musician."—"A Workhouse Farm," Standard, 10th March, 1886.
