Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/27

Rh cause of research. Mr. W. F. Kirby added to a wide knowledge of entomology a profound acquaintance with various branches of folklore, shown in his translation of the Kalevala, his Hero of Esthonia, and his notes contributed to Sir R. Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. As we review our work in the past, we are often tempted to regret the chances which we have lost, the schemes which we have failed to accomplish, because the man and the money were lacking for their fulfilment. Of course, with a larger membership and more ample revenue, we could undertake many projects which, for the present, must remain only a pious aspiration. But, considering our limited resources, the published literature of our Society represents a substantial contribution to the knowledge of the mind of man in its primitive stages. By the organisation of anthropological studies in our leading universities, by our association in this room with scientific training in the heart of the Empire, we are doing much to impress the importance of the subject upon the rising generation of students. During the recent meeting of the British Association at Dundee, we succeeded in re-establishing, after some years of neglect, the study of folklore as a branch of the work of the Anthropological Section. Miss Burne, Mr. Hartland, and myself, as your representatives, supported by Scottish scholars like Canon Macculloch and Mr. Brodie Innes, discussed the racial element in the folklore of that country. We pointed out that, while older writers, from Sir Walter Scott to J. F. Campbell of Islay, J. G. Campbell, and W. Gregor, — to name only a few out of a long list of worthies, — did yeomen's service in exploring popular tradition, they have left few successors, and that, unless a fresh body of workers is prepared to take the field, much which it is now possible to collect will inevitably be lost. Considerable interest was displayed in the subject, and we may hope that the good seed which has been sown will