Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/31

Rh opinion of their value, both intrinsically and as models for all inquirers. Mr. Walter Gregor again sends us up a contribution of great value from his own home.

In the Contributive section we have two masterly papers by Mr. Nutt, and one by Mr. Jacobs; and the latter must pardon my congratulating him on his attainment, on this occasion, of true folk-lore methods. Mr. Ordish's paper is, I believe, his first study presented to the Society, and it opened up a subject which has been quite neglected by us, and which is capable of yielding splendid results, for the dramatic influences of primitive usage are very great.

A word or two more in conclusion. No doubt my scheme of work is ambitious—perhaps, indeed, too ambitious to realise. But I am not the one to shrink from a task, however gigantic, if the possibility of good results looms in the distance. And, moreover, the existence of such a scheme as a working-plan is of great value, because it not only supplies us, as it were, with the necessary pigeon-holes wherein to place all contributions received, but it suggests, and perhaps forms, a habit of research among workers in one common direction. I therefore put forward an urgent appeal to the Society to help me in having these things done. I am willing to do all that lies in me to do, and I ask you, by virtue of the office you have elected me to, to bid me organise bands of willing workers—men and women—who will set about collecting the fragments yet to be discovered, and will read through books, and copy out each item found therein, sending all their discoveries up to a central bureau, and doing it all persistently and faithfully as workers in a common scientific cause. If I have your mandate to-night to attempt such an organisation as I can, in my mental vision, see before me; if I can succeed in imparting to any of you the great necessity there is for our Society to still lead the way as first among folk-lore societies; if I can put into the feeble words at my limited command some indications of the importance of deliberate work by us all in collective