The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-09

The teachers and educators of Alabama are organized in an effort to preserve the folklore of the state and the south. The work is being conducted through the eff forts of the teachers of English in the various schools and colleges of the state, and the importance of this work was em- phasibzed at the meeting of the educa- tional association here. At the session of the teachers of English, Prof. E. I. White. instructor of English at Auburn, read an able paper on the subject, The Collection of Folklore" He said:
 "Folxlore, If you will allow me obe- gin with fundamentals, is any kind of lore or learning that Is the common prod .uct or possession of the plain people rather than of some one author or liter ary group. In authorship some of 1t is communal; most of it is obscure, and some of it is individual, but has been adopted by the folk as their own. Examples of the last would be Casey Jones and even Sewanee river. Folklore in point of time extends from the negro songs and sailor chanties of the present to the earliest of the old ballads few generations before Shakespeare, and even, as in the case of weather and crop superstitions, back into the obscurity of the dark ages. In scope 1t includes a wide range of subject matter.
 Songs and ballads, signs and omens, cures, peculiar customs, dialect sayings, dances, riddles and proverbs-all are folk lore, as is pointed out in the report of state folklore quoted in the bulletin of rr ct.1. lot fnv, It might also have included animal stories, nursery rhymes. and Indian. ghost and outlaw tales of traditionary charac- ter This in itself seems a wide field, quite wide enough to satisfy the interests of almost any student or teacher, put each one of these divisions has ramif1ca- lions that indicate possibilities much broader still. Take songs and ballads, for instance. There are the old Scotch popular ballads. some of which have been rediscovered in this country. There are Irish songs, negro songs, sailor songs, songs of labor, cowboy songs, backWoods songs, logging camp songs, railroad songs, stevedores songs, and songs about popu- lar heroes. Any one of these groups or fers a considerable field for exploration. For instance I have been specializing this year on the negro song. perhaps the least thoroughly explored or all tne loinioI Q fields Through my students and outside acuuaintances I have collected 200 or 3OO pages of manuscript. The variety of this material may be seen from the following classification I have mado of the songs already collected.
 '.1. Songs not originally negro in com position, but adapted and sung. and In some cases modified by them. have diff ferent versions of Uncle Ned as sung by negroes in Memphis, Tenn. and in differ- ent Alabama counties. Other examples are Mo'ner, You Shall Be Free and Alabama Bound.
 '2 Parodies, especially of Alabama Bound
 "3. Short, improvised songs about their work and daily habits. Examples are. 'Capn, Capn, To Watch Done Stop, and It's 12 O'Clock in He'll
 A. Religious songs--an extensive and in teresting group. Examples are: 'Sistah Mary We've Three Links of Chain,' Dis Ole World and One Mo- etc. Negro glee clubs help perpetuate these.
 "5. Coarse songs about women. typically negro, but generally unquotable. e. Songs that indicate gome age, such as racing songs. steamboat songs, war time songs and animal songs.
 LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
 Folklore has both literary and 9