Congress. Regret must also be expressed that the date fixed for the Congress, coinciding as it did with the beginning of the academic winter semester in Germany and America, rendered it impossible for several scholars to accept the Committee's invitation.
We nevertheless claim that most departments of folklore research have been touched and illuminated. In the burning question of folk-tale diffusion issue has rarely been joined by the opposing schools with greater definiteness. The papers of Mr. Gomme, of Mr. Jevons, and of Dr. Winternitz will be acknowledged as distinct contributions to the solution of the vexed questions connected Aith the primitive home and early civilisation of the Aryan-speaking peoples. Mr. Stuart-Glennie has attacked the problem of origins in a way that must stimulate thought and provoke discussion even where it fails to command assent. Mr. Paton and Mr. Leland illustrated the continuity of rude thought and practice in a most striking manner. The latter's paper was, indeed, using the word in no invidious sense, the most sensational of those laid before the Congress. It demands the earnest attention of classical mythologists as well as of Italian folk-lorists. The mention of this paper recalls Dr. Tylor's vivâ voce exposition of the significance of his collection of charms. Many present felt this to be an epoch-making contribution to the archæological side of folk-lore. Those, it might be, who could hardly credit the preservation in modern Tuscany of Etruscan god-names and local ritual vouched for by Mr. Leland, were confronted by Dr. Tylor with the tangible preservation of form in the amulets of Southern Italy throughout a period extending over at least 3,000 years. Nor, as the papers of Miss Owen and Mr. F. H. Groome will show, was that comprehension of and sympathetic insight into the feelings of the folk, to which our study must always be indebted for the chief part of our material, without their witness at the Congress. Finally, the problem of the connection between legal and political
