Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 59
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE MYSTERY AND MENTAL ATMOSPHERE.1
BY SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, Br., C.B., C.L.E., F.S.A. When I agreed, after much searching of heart, to accept the office of President of this Congress, I was not aware that, in a Presidential Address delivered before the Society by Mr. A. R. Wright in February 1927, he had submitted "that the coming Jubilee might be suitably accompanied by a careful stock taking of the position and scope of our science." Even if I had known of such a hope expressed in so high a quarter, I am not competent to comply with it. I therefore trust that both he and you will excuse me if I go my own way in this Address, commencing it as if the suggestion above mentioned had never been made, in the hope that some one else will be able to supply the information required.
In 1921 the Folklore Society, in the forty-third year of its existence, published a brief history of its origin and scope. It was founded in 1878 for the purpose of collecting, recording and studying the fast perishing relics of folklore, a term which was defined as meaning the Learning of the People. We are told that it was invented in 1846—only 82 years ago by Mr. W. J. Thoms, who afterwards followed the initiative of a lady, still known to folklorist readers of Notes and Queries, as "St. Swithin," and became a founder of the Society. The term "Folklore " was to replace the clumsy expression “Popular Antiquities," and soon established itself as a generic term, under which the traditional beliefs, stories, songs and sayings current among backward peoples, or retained by the uncultured classes of more advanced peoples, are comprehended and included." The term covers everything which forms part of the mental equipment of the folk, as distinguished from their technical skill. It is moreover," in fact, the expression of the psychology of early man."
The founding of the Folklore Society of England in 1878 was followed by similar foundations, in Spain in 1884, in France in 1885 and 1886, in the United States in 1888, in Germany in 1890, in Belgium in 1891, in Switzerland in 1896, in Poland in 1904, in Greece in 1909, and also in Finland, Hungary, Esthonia and other countries, delegates from some of which are with us to-day. Everywhere the object has been mainly the collection of items of the learning of the people, a point, as will be seen presently, it is important to insist on.
It was quickly clear, however, to certain folklorists that the work could not be allowed to remain altogether there, and that without forgetting that the collection must for many a year form the chief object, it would be necessary before long to go over the facts collected and see what their import was. Such a process in its infanoy was discernible in articles contributed to the first Journal of the Society, The Folklore Record, in its earliest years, even before any of the other Societies on the Continent of Europe and in America were formed. In fact, it was soon seen that if folklorists confined themselves to the collecting and literary sides of their work, the subject would rapidly wear itself out for want of continued interest therein; and certain of them began to look forward to overhauling the collections made. In quite early years it became evident indeed that the study of folklore must become scientific if it was to live on indefinitely. Thus in the introduction to volume II of the Folklore Record Andrew Lang talked of the Science of Folklore in 1879.
By making a scientific study of folklore is meant looking at it according to the principles of science based on knowledge and tested by logic. But perhaps the best way of explaining the difference between the work of such a body as the Folklore Society and that of the Royal Society is that adopted by Lord Balfour the other day, when he said that the British Academy was founded because there were branches of learning not included in the work of the Royal Society, which concentrated on what we now call natural sciences. But it left whole branches of human interest, scholarship and research wholly untouched." In our humble way, then, we folklorists also are endeavouring to fill up part of the gap, to what we may consider
1 Presidential Address to the Folkloro Jubilee Congress in London, delivered on 20th September 1928.
