Excerpt from American Country-Dances, Vol. 1 For this first volume of American Folk-Dances I have taken the "contra-dances" of rural New England, for this is one of the old, most truly American sections of our country, where many generations of the same stock have grown up undisturbed by foreign influences, and where sufficient time has elapsed since the days of the early settlers for the building up of certain traditions and customs. The social group-dances which have originated or evolved through common usage under such conditions in this country are as truly folk-dances as those found in the older countries, and have elements which are almost universally characteristic of folk-dances. And yet it has often been said that our country has no folk-music or folk-dancing of its own other than that of the American Indian! We are to-day a nation of immigrants, not of Indians, and the folk-traditions that are most essentially our own are those which have developed (from traditions brought to us by our early immigrants) into something peculiarly our own. And we have the new and dazzling wealth of folk-art brought in with the comparatively recent rush of immigration from many countries, the beauty and value of which is not yet generally understood or appreciated. Surely, the folk-dances and music of all the nationalities which make up the people of our country may be considered ours just as these people are our people, and every effort should be made to encourage, preserve and assimilate this dancing and music, so that we may not only have these added resources for social enjoyment and recreation; but that our national life may be enriched with beauty and color and joy of living which may become the foundation of a yet undreamed-of development of art In this country. It was with the hope of assisting toward this end that my earlier collections of folk-dances and music of other countries were published, and for the same purpose the Organization Committee of an American Folk-Dance Society was formed In February, 1916. This present volume contains some of the old Country-Dances which are most essentially American Folk-Dances because they have grown here. Some of them are slightly reminiscent of English country-dances, and were probably originally suggested by or evolved from them. Most of them, however, seem to be products of this country, and all have a typical and distinctly individual quality of their own, both In their form and the manner and style in which they are danced.- The constant repetition of the theme, and the easy swing and rhythm of the dance, are almost hypnotically fascinating. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.