whites, but many of the better educated negroes. It occurred to some of us that, by starting in the paper a department of Folk-Lore and Ethnology, we might be able to collect through the educated colored people, who are teaching among their own color in the country districts, some material that had not been already gathered, and might so, while adding interest to our publication, preserve a record of customs and beliefs now happily passing away, but which connect the negro’s African and American past with his present.
Our first step was the organization of a folk-lore society, and the publication in the "Workman," and in circular form as well, of a letter to graduates of the Hampton school, explaining the desirability of collecting negro folk-lore and giving topics and suggestions. This letter was accompanied by an editorial giving extracts from letters received from prominent men and women, both white and colored, who had approved the plan as stated to them in private letters. Among those who so helped forward the work at the beginning were Professor Shaler, Mr. William Wells Newell, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Mr. George W. Cable, Rev. Alexander Crummell of Washington, and Mr. Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee.
The Folk-Lore Society existed for nearly a year without constitution or officers, meeting usually once a month in my parlor, and offering whatever contributions it had to offer, in the most informal way. Its membership now is about twenty, mostly made up of colored graduates of the school, resident either on the school grounds or at Hampton. It has now a constitution, a president, vice-president, treasurer, and two secretaries. Its monthly meetings, however, still retain their informal character, as it is our experience that we do better work without too much red tape.
As a rule, subjects are given out in advance, but no formal papers are required. Sometimes some member who seems to have an unusual fund of knowledge on some subject will prepare a paper and bring it in, and then the discussion that follows it will, in many cases, add much to the matter contained in the paper. Our methods as a society have been, as a rule, altogether lacking in originality. We have gathered in for our own use all things relating to negro folk-lore that we could find, with this single exception,—nothing must come in that we have ever seen in print. Those of us who are teachers may obtain from our students stories or signs, or anything else that we choose to call for, and bring them in as our contribution. Others whose work throws them in contact with the older men and women, who still retain the primitive ways and thoughts of the slave days, can contribute what they gather in their conversation with them. Many of the members can, by cudgelling their own
