Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/378

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370
EIGHTH REPORT, JUNE 1886.

hands of native Chinese students who would help him in his researches. The Council think that such results as these are encouraging, and point the direction to which their future efforts should tend.

A second very important work which the Council are of opinion the Society should undertake at once is the issue of an authoritative exposition of the scope and aim of the science of Folk-lore, accompanied by questions which may be used by travellers and collectors. During the year the Council were asked by the Council of the Palestine Exploration Fund to assist them in drawing up a set of questions for the use of collectors in Palestine. That Society had secured the services of some native workers, under the direction of Dr. Post, and they wished to be informed of the best means of employing this valuable help. The Council at once assented to the proposition, and appointed a Committee to consider the best means of assisting the object of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The Committee reported that they considered the time had come when the Society should issue an authorised Handbook to the Science of Folk-lore, similar to the Anthropological Notes and Queries issued by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Council concurred in this report, re-appointing the Committee to consider and draw up a scheme and code of questions. The Committee consisted of Messrs. Edward Clodd, H. B. Wheatley, Nutt, Gomme, Stuart-Glennie, Captain Temple, Dr. Richard Morris, and Miss Busk, and they are still considering this important subject. They have adopted, as a basis, the plan of dividing the subject into the heads suggested in the Folk-Lore Journal for January 1885, and they propose that Members of the Society and their friends should be asked to undertake certain sections, and send in a code of questions to the Committee, who will then arrange and prepare them for ultimate publication. The following are the divisions of the subject and all the Members of the Committee have under-