ity of Florida, Gainesville, publishes the _Southern Folklore
Quarterly_. Levette J. Davidson of the University of Denver, author
of _A Guide to American Folklore_, University of Denver Press, 1951,
directs the Western Folklore Conference. The _Journal of American
Folklore_ has published a good deal from the Southwest and Mexico. The
Sociedad Folklorica de Mexico publishes its own _Anurio_. Between 1929
and 1932, B. A. Botkin, editor of _A Treasury of Southern Folklore_,
1949, and A _Treasury of Western Folklore_, 1951 (Crown, New York),
brought out four volumes entitled _Folk-Say_, University of Oklahoma
Press. OP. The volumes are significant for literary utilizations of
folklore and interpretations of folks.

MUSEUMS

Museums do not belong to the DAR. Their perspective on the past is
constructive. The growing museums in Santa Fe, Tucson, Phoenix, Tulsa,
Oklahoma City, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Denver, and on west
into California represent the art, fauna, flora, geology, archeology,
occupations, transportation, architecture, and other phases of the
Southwest in a way that may be more informing than many printed volumes.

35. Subjects for Themes

THE OBJECT OF THEME-WRITING is to make a student observe, to become
aware, to evaluate, to enrich himself. Any phase of life or literature
named or suggested in the foregoing chapters could be taken as a subject
for an essay. The most immature essay must be more than a summary; a
mere summary is never an essay. The writer must synthesize, make his own
combination of thoughts, facts, incidents, characteristics, anecdotes,
interpretations, illustrations, according to his own pattern. A writer
is a weaver, weaving various threads of various hues and textures into a
design that is his own.

"Look into thy heart and write." "Write what you know about." All this
is good advice in a way--but students have to write themes whether they
have anything to write or not. The way to get full of a subject, to
generate a conveyable interest, is to fill up on the subject. As clouds
are but transient forms of matter that "change but cannot die," so
most writing, even the best, is but a variation in form of experiences,
ideas, observations, emotions that have been recorded over and over.

In general, the materials a student weaves are derived from three
sources: what he has read, what he has heard, what he has observed and
experienced himself. If he chooses to sketch