aimed at simplicity, brevity and clearness in the description.

As to the extent of the demand and its constant tendency to increase, so
far, there can be no doubt. As to the permanence of the demand, as to
whether the Morris dance is likely to become again, as once it was, a
feature of our national life, one can only surmise. For ourselves, we
believe absolutely in the permanence of this revival, and that these
astounding results of our efforts hitherto are evidence, not of a
fleeting phase or vogue but of no less than that we have restored to our
own people a rightful inheritance, a means and method of self-expression
in movement, native and sincere, such as is offered by no other form of
dancing known to us.

The outstanding feature of all our English institutions is their
continuity: to have continuity you must have age and a hallowed
tradition: these we have in everything national, save only in our songs
and dances. These, although we are anything but an imitative race, we
have imported from un-English lands, with the inevitable result that in
dance and music we express everybody but ourselves. We shall go on doing
so until the treasure-house of our Folk-music and dances--now for several
generations mysteriously closed to us--shall be re-opened. In this
handbook we have tried to do something towards restoring that forsaken
repository to its rightful pre-eminence.




HISTORICAL.