Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/436

380 "Voodoo Magic"; by Mr. C. G. Leland, on "Etruscan Magic". The section on Institutions will include a paper by Mr. G. L. Gomme, on "The Non-Aryan Elements of British Institutions"; and Dr. E. Winternitz, on "Aryan Burial Customs"; besides papers on the Folk-origin of the Jury System, and of Borough English. Besides these more general papers, special and more particular communications will be interspersed among them. Discussion will be welcomed from all members on any of the papers. In addition to the papers, there will be held, outside Congress hours, meetings of a Methodological Committee, which will, it is anticipated, afford a point d'appui for continuous work for any future Congresses. These gentlemen will have to consider such questions as a standard list of folk-tale incidents, a standard nomenclature for folk-lore research, a common plan for a folk-lore bibliography, and a universal questionnaire of folk-lore. If this committee sets international committees at work on these important subjects, to be reported on at future Congresses, its work will be not the least important or useful of the Congress of 1891.

Almost for the first time, English Folk-lore is about to emerge before the public gaze, and to show its claims for treatment as an object worthy of study and research. The leaders of the Congress have done their best that this début shall be worthy of the science. It remains for the members to help towards this consummation by aiding the various committees to the best of their power. The day is past when exaggerated hopes were held of the action of Congresses on the progress of science. But the day will never be past when a touch of good-fellowship did not promote the personal side of research. Let us hope that the Folk-lore Congress of 1891 will not be wanting in that particular side of the promotion of research.