home, and beyond the influence of the family circle. By its 
     nature a nursery rhyme is a jingle preserved and 
     propagated not by children but by adults, and in this 
     sense it is an ‘adult’ rhyme. It is a rhyme which is adult 
     approved. The schoolchild’s verses are not intended for 
     adult ears. In fact part of their fun is the thought, usually 
     correct, that adults know nothing about them. Grown-
     ups have outgrown the schoolchild’s lore. If made aware 
     of it they tend to deride it; and they actively seek to 
     suppress its livelier manifestations. Certainly they do 
     nothing to encourage it. And the folklorist and 
     anthropologist can, without travelling a mile from his 
     door, examine a thriving unselfconscious culture (the 
     word ‘culture’ is used here deliberately) which is as 
     unnoticed by the sophisticated world, and quite as little 
     affected by it, as is the culture of some dwindling