134 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [MAR. 24, 



March 24, 1890. 

 Stated Meeting. 

 The President, Dr. Newberry, in the chair. 

 About thirty-five persons present. 

 The minutes of March 17th were read and approved. 

 Mr. W. W. Newell was then introduced and read a paper on 

 the study of folk-lore. 

 (Abstract.) 



The term folk-lore seems to many persons to cover a field of 

 study not clearly defined. But this quality of indefiniteness is 

 common to all terms used to denote studies connected with the 

 intelligence of man. Anthropology, ethnology, psychology are 

 each terms embracing a vague and infinitely extended field, 

 which, in practice, is limited by more or less arbitrary boun- 

 daries. 



By folk-lore is to be understood oral tradition, — information 

 and belief handed down from generation to generation without 

 the use of writing. There are reasons why the mass of knowl- 

 edge, — including history, theology, and romance, — which has 

 been orally preserved in any people, should be set aside as 

 capable of independent treatment. Such matter must express 

 the common opinion, or it would not be remembered; it must be 

 on a level with the notions of the average rather than of the ex- 

 ceptional person; it must belong, that is, to the folk rather than 

 to individuals. 



The term folk-lore has its most definite significance in connec- 

 tion with civilized peoples of modern Europe, having been 

 invented by an anonymous correspondent of the Athenceum 

 (London), August 22d, 1840, who signed his name Ambrose 

 Merton, understood to be a pseudonym for W. J. Thoms. He 

 included under this title " Manners, customs, observances, su- 

 perstitions, ballads, proverbs,'^ and claimed the honor of intro- 

 ducing into the language the word ''folk-lore," as Disraeli had 

 claimed the honor of ''fatherland." The latter word has not 

 met with success, but "folk-lore" has been accepted not only 

 in English speech, but also in most European languages. 



It was soon evident that the oral traditions of Europe could 

 not be treated by themselves without consideration of oral tradi- 

 tions in other parts of the globe. Customs and superstitions 

 found in the United States, for example, not only among recent 



