Waco evening news. (Waco, Tex.) 1888-1889, 1889-04-04
DECAY OF TRADITION.


L
Tho Invention Of writing seems TO Have
Put An Ed to rolk Lore.
II is said that the invention Of writ.
ing injured the power of memory, and
years ago, before the schoolmaster
was abroad as he is nowadays, it was
possible to meet with many instances
Of strong memorizing capacity among
persons who could neither read nor
write. Complicated accounts could
be kept by the aid of a italy" only,
and tho memory of many small far
mer or petty rural shop keeper was his
only ledger and order book. It is GER
tain that since the art Of writing has
become an almost universal accom-
plishment the faculty of memory,
being less needed, is less cultivated.
Long after the invention of letters our
forefathers rested much upon oral ira
dition. Antiquarians assert that one
Of the ancient races Of Italy possessed
no written language, and even where
written characters were in use oral
tradition formed an important supple
men to them. Folk lore" tales and
ballads have been handed down from
lip to lip for centuries with curious
fidelity.
When oral tradition was recognized
MS a vehicle for actual information
more care was taken regarding its &C
curacy than would be the case in
these days. The old reciters jealously
guarded q time honored form Of words.
even III their prose narratives. Bre-
ton peasants, notably those who pos
sess talent as raconteurs, will re-
peat legend or story with scrupu-
lous fidelity to the established form in
which they have always heard the in
cidents related, and will check trav-
eler who attempts to deviate from the
orthodox version with may, mon
sieur, the story should begin thus" re-
peating the regular form of the tale.
The eastern story teller deviates little
in his time honored recitals of tales of
love, adventure and magic; we recog-
nize all our old friends from the
Arabian Nights" if we halt to listen
to professional raconteur in the
streets of any Oriental town. In the
days of war against prescribed books"
faithful memories were often utilized
to preserve prohibited works from OBJ
livion. During the persecution of
the Waldenses, in the Thirteenth CEN
fury, when their version of the Script
ures was prohibited and destroyed
wherever found, their ministers COM
mitted' whole books of the sacred vol
ume to memory, and repeated chap
tiers at their religious meetings. 1t
would be tedious to enumerate the
many instances in which tradition
has preserved what written histories
were forbidden to chronicle.
On tho whole, oral traditions are
strangely accurate; strangely, when
we consider how facts are frequently
altered and distorted when occur
rences are related by different story
tellers. The child's game of Russian
Gin which a secret whispered
to one person and repeated to circle
of others, is usually altered out of rec
ignition when repeated aloud by the
last hearer) is played every. day in
society. And yet local tradition will
faithfully chronicle the site of battle.
the burial place Of a hero, the date Of
q siege, and sometimes, after genera
tons of historians and antiquarians
have scoffed at the unreliable local
legend" a later investigation will dis
cover that the despised traditional
story was the true one after all. Cen
turtles Of repetition may have slightly
added to the incidents or distorted
some of the facts, but the main tale is
strictly exact. The reputed treasure
trove" may prove but trifling hoard,
the battlefield smaller in extent, the
graves of the heroes less numerous;
but in each case local tradition is true
regarding the facts that occurred and
the localities where they took place.
Traditions may at least claim to be
as accurate as written history; though
this, perhaps, is faint praise. Oral
tradition is usually free from con-
scious party bias. The reporters of
traditional lore carry on the tale as
they heard it; but how many an elo-
quent historian appears to assume q
brief for one side or another in every
party contest, and to write his history
with q view, not of calculating facts
but Of representing certain historical
characters as angels or the reverse.
Such writers are always the pleasant
est to read; an impartial historian"
is sadly dull, as rule; but when q
biased writer plays the part of Clio,
tradition may often prove the safer
guide of the two. Folk lore, if not
an altogether reliable guide, is seldom
totally at fault in its statement of
facts, and tradition has frequently
kept alive memories which might
otherwise have persisted altogether.
Books may be destroyed, and history
willfully garbled, but it is less easy to
extinguish local traditions.-Man-
chester Courier.