Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/423

 Reviews. 397

which has about twenty-five elements, or prefixes and sufiixes, with which almost every verb combines, and to underscore and write a new slip for every element with every verb would entail a burden of v/ork altogether unnecessary. It is better to take some examples of the prefixes and suffixes, find out the force of each, write each prefix and suffix on a separate sliji with some illustrations of their uses, and write the root of the verb with its definition on a slip by itself, leaving room on the slip for any peculiar or idiomatic uses of the verb. \\\\.\\ a very little practice it will be easy to separate the root from its accretions, and it will be necessary only to note any new roots on a single slip, and not all the elements with which it may combine. In this way, instead of using many thousands of slips, only 2025 will be necessary for the verbs. With the other remarks on learning a new language I agree, and think that they are most helpful. The learner must have a proper respect for the language he is studying, and must not think that, because the people are uncivilized, therefore they are talking a jargon like a lot of monkeys. A sincere respect for the language and the people who are using it will help him to burrow into its secrets ; but a contemptuous attitude will result only in a very superficial skim- ming of the surface. In language work, as in other anthropological investigation, we need a kindly sympathy.

Missionaries possess unique opportunities for the furtherance of anthropological studies, and it is to be hoped that this book of Notes and Queries will be increasingly used by them, and that in the near future they will do for anthropology what they have already done for language. By knowing men's views of life and death, their conceptions of spirits and the spirit land, their view of " sin " in this life and of punishment in the spirit land to which they are hastening, a missionary can preach his doctrines more effectively, and for this reason, among many others, every mission- ary needs more than a mere superficial knowledge of his flock's customs, habits, and thoughts, and, until the Handbook of Folklore becomes accessible by a new edition, I know of no book better able to help him in systematic and scientific study than the one now under consideration.

John H. Weeks.