June 10, 1887.] 



SCIEJsrCE. 



559 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*^*The attention of scientific men is called to the advantages 

 o/ the correspondence columns of SCIENCE for jjlacing promptly 

 on record brief preliminary notices of their investigations. 

 Twenty copies of the number containing his communication 

 will be furnished free to any correspondent on request. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant ivith 

 the character of the journal. 



Correspondents are requested to be as brief as ]}ossible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



A folk-lore and dialect society. 



YouB editorial comment on the proposition to 

 found a folk-lore and dialect society in this country 

 is, in my opinion, exceedingly opportune. When 

 the American historical association was organized a 

 few years ago, your correspondent and Prof. H. B. 

 Adams exchanged views on the feasibility of estab- 

 lishing such a society as auxiliary to the work of the 

 association. The plan, however, fell to the ground, 

 until, a few weeks ago, a gathering of scholars in- 

 terested j)articularly in American folk-lore met at 

 Cambridge, Mass , and formed the nucleus of a 

 promising society for its investigation. The in- 

 valuable work accomplished by the English dialect 

 society, and by such publications as Melnsine in 

 France and Germany, shows what intelligent effort 

 can do in this direction to save from oblivion the 

 relics, linguistic and superstitional, of the past. All 

 philologists know that the study of dialects — dia- 

 lectology — is of extreme importance to the scien- 

 tific linguist ; for in the dialects are often found 

 archaic pronunciations, idioms, usages, which point 

 to a more ancient time than the pronunciations, 

 idioms, and usages prevalent among those who speak 

 the standard tongue. In this manner, dialect studies 

 in modern Greek, modern Italian, Spanish, and 

 German have contributed abundantlj'^ to the expla- 

 nation of phenomena in those languages otherwise 

 inexplicable. In this country, where dialects were 

 sujDposed to be non-existent, or to have been obliter- 

 ated by the levelling influence of the common school, 

 they are really found, on closer inspection, to abound. 

 Noticing this many years ago, the subscriber con- 

 tributed to the Balthnore journal of philology (iii. 

 No. 2) a jjaper on ' The Creole [negro] patois of 

 Louisiana,' which was part of a plan to embrace stud- 

 ies in ' Greaser Spanish ' (Texas, New Mexico, Cali- 

 fornia), ' The Hoosier dialect of the middle states,' 

 ' The cracker dialect of Georgia, East Tennessee, 

 and North Carolina' (as outlin^ed by E. B.), ' Penn- 

 sylvania Dutch ' (after Holdeman), ' New England- 

 isms,' and * Negro English.' The first and last only 

 of this series have been as yet, though very imper- 

 fectly, executed. The essay on negro English was 

 about fifty pages octavo in length, and was published 

 in full, as a tolerably complete grammar of negro, 

 in Anglia (Leipzig, Germany, 1884). A resumi of it 

 was read before the American philological associa- 

 tion, which met at New Haven in July, 1885 ; and a 

 brief abstract of the jpaper appears among its Pro- 

 ceedings for that year. Negro usage abounds with 

 linguistic curiosities, obsolescent idioms, twists and 

 turns descended from the Elizabethan or Jacobin 

 settlers ; and along with these goes a world of quaint 

 superstitions, proverbs, charms, ' saws and sayings,' 

 that reveal a peculiarly naive and old-world turn of 

 mind and imagination. The Society for psychical 

 research ought certainly to investigate this terre 

 vierge, rich with the stratified folk-lore of ages, 

 enamelled with flowers of African parentage, replete 

 with scraps of custom and myth which might throw 



light on the prehistoric period in the life of nations. 

 A sojoiirn at the Virginia Springs might open to the 

 attentive folk-lorist of the north, armed with a 

 memorandum-book, stores inexhaustible of southern 

 mdhrchen ; for here southern society congregates, ■ 

 conversation is still a fine art, and the long evenings 

 of summer are most provocative of meditative remi- 

 niscence. Mr. Gomme's proposed manual for the 

 scientific gathering and classification of all this 

 legendary lore will doubtless prove priceless to such 

 summer sojourners. The south is peculiarly fertile 

 in all the conditions through which the curious be- 

 liefs, customs, and narratives you editorially com- 

 ment upon are handed down from generation to 

 generation ; nay, are even generated under our very 

 noses. Let the Folk-lore society and the American 

 dialect society come and gather while the hills are 

 white with harvest. It requires no exceptionally 

 gifted ]3en to take down what one hears and sees all 

 around one. A series of inteiligehtly articulated 

 circulars, with pregnant hint and clear suggestion, 

 sent out under the auspices of these societies, would 

 doubtless elicit lists of words and deseriptions of 

 customs and folk-lore prevalent in particular locali- 

 ties, and these could gradually be elaborated and 

 systematized into a volume. By all means, let these 

 societies go to work without loss of time, and both 

 co-operate to a common end. 



James A. Hab .ison. 

 Washiugton and Lee univ., 

 Lexington, Va. , June 1. 



The idea of a civil academy. 



The idea of a civil academy at "Washington, as 

 developed by Dr. Herbert B. Adams, in Circular of 

 information No. 1, 1887, bureau of education, seems 

 to have met with a varying reception from the public 

 press. Condemned by some journals and laighly 

 commended by others, the consiaicuous attention'* 

 which it has attracted is the best proof that it is ?"• 

 a mere Utopian dream. 



I believe myself that a civil academy is not i 

 desirable, but that in the no distant future it 

 be a necessity. The opinions of many governme. 

 officials who have held positions of administrative 

 responsibility justify this statement. Only recently 

 a gentleman who has long been prominently con- 

 nected with the public service expressed the convic- 

 tion that he would yet see the bulk of the higher 

 offices distributed on the basis of competitive merit, 

 in place of being bestowed as the reward of political 

 labors. However this may be, there can hardly be 

 any doubt that civil-service principles have come to 

 stay ; and the significance of this fact in the present 

 connection is that a strong demand is thus created 

 for men thoroughly trained and specially fitted, par- 

 ticularly for higher branches of government work. 

 The sentiment has been well expressed by Col. Car- 

 roll D. Wright, whose fifteen years of public admin- 

 istrative experience should entitle his views to 

 considerable weight. In an address recently de- 

 livered before the joint session of the American his- 

 torical and Economic associations at Cambridge, on 

 the study of statistics in colleges, he said, "The ex- 

 tension of civil-service principles must become 

 greater and greater, and the varied demands which 

 will be created by their growth logically become 

 more exacting ; so that the possibilities within the 

 application of such principles are therefore not 

 ideal, but practical, in their nature. And these 



