Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/131

 Rh the main argument, the value of which is not in any way diminished by somewhat crude theories on subjects beyond the immediate field of research. The index, as is often the case with foreign works, is hardly so full as could be wished, and a considerable list of errata might be given.

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In this report on the folklore publications of six years, which fills 180 pages of the Romanische Forschungen, our indefatigable Viennese fellow worker has rendered a real service to folklore studies. Between four and five hundred folkloristic items, books, pamphlets, review or newspaper articles are noticed, and noticed in such a way as to emphasise their special features and to enable the reader to judge their value or (as is frequently the case) their lack of value. If I add that at least one-third of these items belong to the Slavonic languages and would otherwise remain unknown to the majority of Western students, it will be seen that Dr. Krauss' last production is indispensable to all who wish to follow the general movement of folklore studies and to know what is being done in folklore research. As far as I am concerned it has filled me with an, I know, hopeless longing that one of the worthy but borné millionaires who wish to encourage learning but don't know how to set about it, would entrust me with the spending of a thousand pounds to form a library for the Folk-Lore Society. Dr. Krauss' report may further be recommended to the many people who fancy (and with how much justification!) that anything German must needs be dull. He writes in a racy, slapdash style that makes one sit up all the time, and his pages are enlivened by any number of obiter dicta generally enunciated à propos of anything in the world but the matter in hand, as for instance the charming affirmation that no really intelligent person ever cares to vote, and that it is not worth while worrying a rap about