FOLK-LORE STUDY IN AMERICA. 



597 



It did not take Prof. Crane long to make the interesting dis- 

 covery that the fables and " yarns " of Uncle Remus were parallel 

 to stories Prof. Hartt heard from his guide on the Amazon River, 

 to stories collected by Dr. Bleek in South Africa, and to popular 

 tales in Europe. He was able to trace the majority of the Legends 

 of the Old Plantation to their foreign variants.* Prof. Crane is 

 our acknowledged authority in the field of storiology. He first 

 published a charming collection of Italian Popular Tales, with a 

 scholarly introduction and elaborate notes. His able paper on 

 Mediaeval Sermons, Books, and Stories was followed by a criti- 

 cal edition of The Exempla, 

 or Illustrative Stories from 

 the Sermones Vulgares of 

 Jacques de Vitry, published 

 by the English Folk-lore So- 

 ciety in its series of memoirs 

 (1890). Jacques de Vitry 

 was an eloquent and popu- 

 lar bishop of the thirteenth 

 century, who made great use 

 of apologues, or exempla, in 

 his sermons, with the ex- 

 press purpose of instructing 

 and sometimes of amusing 

 his audiences. These illus- 

 trative stories were diffused 

 over all Europe, and some 

 of them have won their way 

 into literature have reap- 

 peared now in the fables of 

 La Fontaine, and then in 

 the plays of Moliere and 



Shakespeare. Prof. Crane has published recently an edition of 

 Chansons Populaires de la France, a selection from French popu- 

 lar ballads. 



Thus far the work of American folk-lorists has been directed 

 almost entirely to the collection of material to be collated and 

 examined afterward according to scientific methods. American 

 students think that the time has not yet come for theoretical dis- 

 cussions, such as English and Continental scholars have waged so 

 sharply at times and without good cause. Nor are they ready yet 

 to favor the establishment of a separate science of folk lore. In 

 the Handbook, issued by the authority of the English Society, it 

 is stated that " the definition of the science of folk lore, as the so- 



FBOF. T. FREDERICK CRANE. 



* Prof. Crane's study appeared in The Popular Science Monthly, April, 1881. 



