The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1914-02-06
Let's Preserve Them.

ucation P. P. ClaxtOn to collect the
remaining fragments of our folk
tales and folk songs is distinct pub
lie service. His appeal that the
American people send to him such OF
our folk tales and ballads as they
hanpen to remember should meet
with a hearty and prompt response.
This basic element in our literature
should be collected and preserved,
and it is now or never. Whatever
has at any time appealed to the best
emotion and moved the heart OF
people must have for their children
and their children's children his
torical and a cultural value. This is
especially true of folk tales and folk
songs.
The English and Scottish popular
ballads helped to mould the charac-
ter of the men and women who made
up the greater part Of our colonial
population. For generations these
ballads were sung along the Atlantic
coast and in the valleys of the Appa-
lachian mountains. The descendants
of the English, Irish and ScOtch-lrish
took many of them with them on
their march across the continent and
the ballads were familiar in child
hood to millions of men and women
whose children have never heard
10 If
industrial and commercial life they
have vanished like the fresh, cool
mists of the morning before the heat
of the sun, but they still have their
value and should not be lost out of
our lives, for, as Mr.. Claxton says,
eff they are the nation will be poore"
for it," The statement, LET me
make the songs of the people and
you shall make its laws" is worthy
of serious consideration, for this is
a legislation that appeals directly to
the heart.
Sidney Lanier did not Overstate it
when he said of these old ballads:
81 know that he who walks in the
way these old ballads point will be
manful in necessary fight, fair in
trade, loyal in love, generous to the
poor, tender in the household, pru-
dent in living, plain in speech, SIM
pie in behavior, and honest in all
things"
But many influences tend to oblit-
crate these old ballads. We must
have @our catchy, empty songs and
tunes to accompany the mo Tern tan
go and the many and varied dips
This late movement is not due to any
veneration for the past, nor is it
founded on the theory that "old
things are best" They are superior
because they are strong in patriot
ism, vivid in imagination, rich in en-
perience, and they contain, more
over, a warm glow of an all-peryad-
ing sympathy and love.
Luckily we have preserved many
OF these old tales and ballads. Who
of US can estimate the good we de-
riya3 from the fable of the race be-
tween the hare and the tortoise? Or
who of US failed to be impressed by
the experience of the old farmer who
finally concluded to try what virtue
there is in staves?" Who is it that
cannot recall how his imagination
Toasted on such early experiences as
Ride, ride to Boston" or This lit
tie piggy went to market, or This
is the church and this is the stee-
ple?"
All this may sound foolish unless
one looks carefully into his own eX'
perience. Poetry preceded prose in
the literary history of our race, and
the mother who attempts to WOO her
child to activity, to sport, and to DlaV
by chanting such delightfully."- quaint
ditties as ''Hush-a-by-baby in the
tree top" by 70 baby bunting"
is laying the first foundation for a
literary appreciation and is develop
ing the simple rhythmic movements
which will remain as undertones TO-
life time.
Children initiate what they see and
hear. Imitation enters into the very
fastness of their characters. Walt
Whitman gives expression to this
thought in his lines:
There was a child went forth every
day,
And the first object he looked upon
that object he became.
But modern authors consider this
a hazardous field. 1t was not so for
Burns, who wrote Scotland's songs
1t was not so for our own Uncle
Remus, who gave US our Southern
negro folk lore.
We should by all means collect our
old folk tales and ballads. Let's not
forget that the nursery rhymes have