WORK AND METHODS OF THE HAMPTON FOLK-
LORE SOCIETY.[1]
Any one who has had much to do with the educated negroes of the present day knows that by them the old stories and superstitions and customs of their own race are only too apt to be looked down upon as all bad, and to be forgotten as quickly as possible. I have been told by colored teachers in the public schools of Washington that it was almost impossible for them to gather from their pupils any folk-lore at all, so certain are they, if they have any, that it is something only to be laughed at, and so difficult is it to induce them to reveal to teachers, even of their own race, the existence of any peculiar beliefs or habits. In the first opportunity that has come to the colored people of outgrowing their past of ignorance, slavery, and savagery, it is natural that a reaction should occur against even the history of the past; and it is more than possible that in a generation or two those bits of folk-lore peculiar to the negro may be lost entirely, unless caught now by those so situated as to be able to gather them up.
Folk-lore has no greater enemy than the common school, and more than one half of the negro children of the country are now enrolled in the public schools.
The Hampton Folk-Lore Society has for its object the education of the colored people to do their own observing and collecting; to watch the little things peculiar to their own race, and to record them and place them where they can be made of permanent value. It arose, to begin with, not in enthusiasm for the collection of folk-lore, but from a strong desire on the part of some of those connected with the Hampton work to bridge over, if possible, the great gulf fixed between the minds of the educated and the uneducated, the civilized and the uncivilized,—to enter more deeply into the daily life of the common people, and to understand more thoroughly their ideas and motives.
Our interest in folk-lore is used, not so much to help us in interpreting the past as it is to aid us in understanding present conditions, and to make it easier for us to push forward the philanthropic work that Hampton is doing.
Perhaps editorial zeal on my part may have had something to do with the starting of the movement. We publish at Hampton a monthly paper, the "Southern Workman," of which I have the honor to be one of the editors. This paper reaches not only the
- ↑ Paper read at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society, Baltimore, December 29, 1897.
