The West Riding Teachers' Anthropological Society.
The West Riding County Council holds a yearly "Vacation Course" at Scarborough for teachers in primary and secondary schools, and at the session of August, 1909, an attempt was made to emphasise the importance of anthropological study as part of the teacher's professional equipment. An evening lecture was given, and attended by nearly four hundred students; two discussion classes were held, one on anthropometric and colour-survey work, and the other on the collection of local folklore; and Tylor's Anthropology and Haddon's Study of Man were read by a considerable number of the students.
The result was that a small Anthropological Society was set on foot. At present there are nine members; the lecturer acts as secretary and issues a "Monthly Letter," which is typewritten and circulated by the Education Department of the West Riding County Council, and with this is generally included a 'special supplement' consisting of printed matter dealing with anthropology, archaeology, or folklore. For example, the members have received (through the kindness of Mr. Sidney Hartland and others) the Form of Schedule for an Ethnographical Survey issued by the British Association, and Notes explanatory of the Schedule; a paper on the Hair and Eye Colour of School Children in Surrey; and Mr. G. H. Round's Notes on the Systematic Study of English Place Names. The President of the Folk-Lore Society has been kind enough to promise copies of her presidential address. The Letter itself contains notes on Yorkshire museums, "books recommended," correspondence with members, and a series of papers on "The Significance of Children's Singing-Games."
The practical work of the Society has been, so far, in the direction of folklore. At an informal meeting held at Scarborough the members decided "to begin by collecting local Singing-Games, collections to be sent in to the Secretary during January"; and "charms, folk-medicine, superstitions, luck-bringers, proverbs, ghost-stories, local legends, witchcraft, Christmas customs, guising, and sword-dancing" were suggested as subsequent objects of study. Up to the present time forty singing-games have been
