Chapter X · MUSICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA

Early singing teachers and schools—Music societies in colleges—Introduction of music in the public schools—The Germanic influence—Conservatories—Musical courses in colleges and universities; community music—Present state of public school music—Municipal music.

There seems to be general agreement among students of American music that we are entering upon a national era. That we did not attain this stage long before has generally been laid to the inadequacy of our educational system in music. A less apparent yet more rational statement would be that our educational equipment, growing with the increasing culture of the people and adapting itself to their timely needs and developing comprehension, was the kind most desirable. A 'mugwump' was defined by General Horace Porter as 'a man educated beyond his ability.' Had a European system of musical education, however theoretically ideal, been imposed on young America when necessarily occupied with material problems, we might now be a nation of musical mugwumps, smugly satisfied with ourselves, and incapable of original achievement.

If it be granted, then, that musical culture is conditioned, in kind and degree, upon the character of the people concerned, then the colonization of our country becomes a subject of prime importance, affording, indeed, the best logical method, in conjunction with a general chronological order, for discussing the present subject.

The various colonies which were planted on our eastern shores developed by permeating in successive waves of immigration New York, northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and Michigan and Wisconsin; thence the lines became divergent, broadening through the trans-Mississippi plains until, emerging on the Pacific, they embrace the entire coast, from Seattle to Los Angeles. While the original spirit has been greatly tempered in the course of this progress, its distinctive character still remains—a pale tinge of Puritanism, as it were, which colors every expression of life, and which can be traced on the sociological map of the United States by a narrowing belt of ever-deepening hue, back to its undiluted source: the all-pervasive theocracy of colonial New England.

From the time when this religious influence began to reach beyond its original boundaries, it met and amalgamated, in a social though not sectarian sense, with Presbyterianism, a kindred spirit which, somewhat later than Puritanism, came to America, largely from Scotland, and took root in almost all the colonies from New York to the Carolinas. The 'blue laws' of Connecticut, so repressive of the graces of life, of love and laughter and music, found their counterpart in the Westminster Catechism, wherein the 'moral law,' that is, the regulation of social relations, is said to be 'summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments,' the first four of which are specifically religious.

Religion being the dominant factor in this stream of social influence which flowed through America, and the Bible standing as the chief and final authority on all matters of life, music, the ever-willing handmaid of every human institution asking her assistance, was naturally drafted into the exclusive service of the church. The first singing books were psalm books; the first singing schools were organized for the purpose of the instruction and training of church congregations and church choirs.

I

Private instruction in music was unknown for more than a century after the settlement of the country. In 1673 the British Commissioner for the Plantations reported that there were no 'musicians by trade' in the United States. Indeed, it was not until 1730 that an advertisement appears of a music teacher. In that year a newspaper in Charleston, S. C., printed a notice that John Salter was teaching music in a young ladies' boarding school conducted by his wife.

It is true that some of the psalm-books contained hints for singing, but these were either too obvious or too vague to be of practical value. Thus in the 1698 edition of the 'Bay Psalm-Book' (the work, first published in 1640, ran through seventy editions) there is this general direction: 'First, observe how many note-compass the tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that, so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compass of your and the people's voices, without Squeaking above or Grumbling below.'

As we have seen (in Chapter II), the first books of psalmody pretending to be works of instruction were those of the Rev. John Tufts, of Newbury, Mass., published in 1712 and 1714, and that of the Rev. Thomas Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published in 1721. Largely as a result of Tufts' and Walter's publications, singing schools to teach the reading of psalm-tunes by sight began to be established in New England, although not without strenuous opposition.

In 1723 the Rev. Thomas Symmes, of Bradford, Mass., published a 'joco-serious dialogue concerning regular singing,' which bore the title 'Utile Dulci.' In this he presents and answers prevalent objections to singing by note, among which the following are significant of the ignorance, intolerance and pruriency of the 'unco guid' of that day:

'5. That it is Quakerish and Popish, and introductive of instrumental musick.

'6. That the names given to the notes are bawdy, yea blasphemous.'

The second stimulus to musical education in America was imparted by various American reprints of two English books on psalmody: W. Tansur's collection, 'The Royal Melody Complete,' published in 1754, and Aaron Williams' 'The New Universal Psalmodist,' published in 1763. The prevalent taste in England for musical rococo, such as florid and meaningless 'fuguing choruses,' was thus transplanted to the colonies, where it made a deep impression which was harder to remove and persisted longer than in the mother country.

The most conservative strain of English musical culture, that associated with the Anglican church, existed also in America, awaiting its turn to reign, when growth in general culture and artistic capacity should cause the people to tire of the ingratiating but inconsequential music which held sway. Its exponent was William Tuckey, an English musician of high training and culture, who came to New York in 1753 and made an earnest attempt to educate the colonial people in an appreciation of the best church music. His career as teacher as well as organist and composer has already been touched upon in these pages (see Chap. II). Tuckey called himself 'Professor of the Theory and Practice of Vocal Music,' and the part he played in the musical education of New York and Philadelphia fully justifies the assertion that he was the first teacher in America worthy of the title. His pupils became prominent in all movements of their respective cities for the elevation of not only sacred but secular music to the best standards of Europe.

Already there was the leaven of German influence working for the betterment of music in America. In 1741 Moravian Brethren in their community at Bethlehem, Pa., a little town which has retained to the present day the distinction of being a home of music of the highest order, had established singing schools. Ten years later they formed, in connection with these, an orchestra for the rendition of secular as well as sacred music. In the correspondence of the time, lovers of their country, men who, like Samuel Adams, of Boston, had begun to think nationally and who shortly afterward were to become patriots of the Revolution, put on record their gratification at this important contribution to American culture.

A taste for good music and a desire to inculcate it were also developing in Philadelphia and Baltimore, as shown by records of the time. In 1764 the vestry of St. Peter's and Christ Church in the prosperous city founded by William Penn extended a vote of thanks to two of its most cultured and public-spirited citizens, William Young and Francis Hopkinson (who was soon to achieve distinction as a poet and patriot of the Revolution), for instructing the children of the church in psalmody. In 1765, at St. Anne's Church, Baltimore, Hugh Maguire, probably the organist, established a singing school, for use in which he published 'a new version of the psalms, with all the tunes, both of particular and common measure.' He announced that he would teach singing at their homes to young ladies who played the spinet, his remuneration to be fifteen shillings a quarter and an entrance fee of one dollar.

Returning to New England, we find in William Billings, the 'great Yankee singing-master,' the most important musical influence of the time. The date of publication of his original compositions, 1770, marks an era in American music. By this time the old psalm-tunes in use, only four in number, were worn to death, and the new tunes, having been composed in the novel fuguing style of the English compositions, became instantly popular with the singing schools, which Billings was energetic in organizing and conducting. The most notable of these, that at Stoughton, Mass., is elsewhere described, as well as the general activities of Billings and other teachers of the same general school.

In the circle of musical development of which Philadelphia was the centre, Andrew Adgate of that city was the leading spirit. In 1784 he established an 'Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music' supported by subscription and governed by trustees. So fervent was Adgate in the cause of 'music for the people' that, as conductor of the institution, he organized 'public singings,' which became so popular that within a year the trustees, objecting to 'the indiscriminate assemblage' of the general public, restricted admission to subscribers. Adgate thereupon resigned his position and established a free school, 'Adgate's Institution for diffusing more generally the knowledge of vocal music.' It is significant of the public spirit of the 'cradle of independence' that he found a number of influential men willing to act as trustees of the new organization. The splendid institution which is now the University of Pennsylvania opened its doors to the new enterprise. Inviting requests to join these free classes, Adgate announced: 'The more there are who make this application and the sooner they make it, the more acceptable will it be to the trustees and the teacher.'

Adgate's Institution had a marked influence in Philadelphia in the development of musical appreciation, which is an essential precedent in any community of the practical cultivation of the art. Foreign music teachers after trying vainly in other places, such as New York, for something like remunerative recognition, finally found it in the city whose civic spirit had been broadened by Adgate to include artistic as well as material progress. Among these may be mentioned William Tuckey, already noted; the English musician, Rayner Taylor, who came to America in 1792; and Filippo Trajetta, a Venetian, the son of the noted composer Tomaso Trajetta. Filippo was trained by the best masters, notably Piccini; entering the revolutionary army of Italy, he was captured by the royalists, but, escaping, fled to America, arriving in Boston in 1799, where he taught singing. He toured through the South as a theatrical manager, and finally settled in Philadelphia, teaching and composing music ('Washington's Dead March' being his most popular composition) until his death at the age of seventy-eight in 1854. He published 'Rudiments of the Art of Singing' as a text-book for the 'American Conservatorio,' an institution established in Philadelphia by his pupil, Uri K. Hill; in this he advocated the Italian system of solfeggio to supersede the 'defective sol-fa-ing' in universal use in America.

In New England, more particularly Boston, we find that the foreign influence was making itself felt in music through 'The Massachusetts Compiler,' a work which embodied something of the theory of music as given in the works of German, French, and English authorities. The introduction of this element was probably due to Hans Gram, the German organist at Brattle Church, Boston, who, with Oliver Holden and Samuel Holyoke, published the work in 1795. To Gottlieb Graupner, another German, was mainly due the foreign influence which caused Boston to become for half a century the leading city of the country in musical influence. The 'Philharmonic Society,' which was formed by Graupner and his associates in 1810, prepared the way for the Handel and Haydn Society, founded in 1815, which not only educated Boston and New England in musical appreciation, but had a formative influence on the taste of the entire country.

English talent conjoined at Boston with German in this educational work. Dr. G. J. Jackson, an English musician of the order of William Tuckey and Rayner Taylor—indeed, he was Taylor's schoolmate—had come to America in 1796, and taught music at Norfolk and Alexandria, Va., and Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. In his northward progress he arrived in Boston in 1812, and became organist successively of the Brattle Street Church, King's Chapel, Trinity Church, and St. Paul's Church. He was the leading choirmaster of his day, teaching the English method of chanting, and was employed as music teacher by the first families. He published a book of chants, anthems, etc., and contributed original compositions to 'The Churchman's Choral Companion,' published in New York in 1808 by the Rev. William Smith. His friend Rayner Taylor was also represented in the collection.

II

A singing club, more social than serious in its purpose, had been formed at Harvard in 1786. In 1808 a novel institution, the 'Pierean Sodality,' was established at the college. This was a singing fraternity, the members of which were linked together by a common interest in music. The Sodality was the germ of the present Department of Music in Harvard University. Out of it there arose in 1837 the 'Harvard Musical Association,' composed of alumni of the college who had been members of the Sodality. The report of the committee on organization admirably described the fraternal function of music and stated the fashion in which this was to be realized by the new association:

'Nothing unites men more than music. It makes brothers of strangers; it makes the most diffident feel at home; the most shy and suspicious it renders frank and full of trust; it overflows the rocks of separation between us; it comes up like a full tide beneath us, and opens a free intercourse of hearts.

'We propose, then, to form an association which shall meet here annually on commencement day: if for nothing more, at least to exchange salutations and review recollections, and feel the common bond of music and old scenes....

'But the ultimate object proposed is the advancement of the cause of music, particularly in this university. We would have it regarded as an important object of attention within its walls, as something which sooner or later must hold its place in every liberal system of education; and that place not accidental or a stolen one, but formally recognized. We that love music feel that it is worthy of its professorship, as well as any other science.'

As we shall see later this high purpose was fulfilled in the establishment of a Department of Music in Harvard on an equal basis with the other departments. The association stated that one of its objects was to collect a musical library, and another to promote the production of great symphonies. This program was greatly extended in the course of the existence of the association; chamber concerts, hitherto unknown in Boston, were given in the winter under the leadership of such artists as Herwig and Hohnstock. These concerts led in 1849 to the organization of the Mendelssohn Quintet Club for the exclusive cultivation of chamber music. In 1852, with the moral backing of the association, J. S. Dwight, one of its leading spirits, established 'Dwight's Journal of Music,' a periodical of the highest aim and most authoritative character. Its publication ceased in 1881.

The 'Handel Society of Dartmouth College,' discussed in another connection, had a fate unworthy of its high character and sadly significant of the low state of musical appreciation in the smaller colleges of the times, and in the 'common people' from which class their students were chiefly drawn. It dwindled and died for lack of recruits. Pity it is that some loyal patron of the college had not provided for the perpetuation of the society, if only as a memorial of Dartmouth's chief glory, even surpassing that of having trained in some measure the classic rhetoric and Olympian accents of the greatest of American orators. Our democracy alone, unaided by college culture, produced Lincoln, in most minds the rival of Webster in perfect phrase and his superior in heart-moving utterance, if not in ear-entrancing tone. It has not yet brought forth the compeers of these in music, since education is required to supply the nurturing musical environment found abroad but hitherto lacking in American life. Had music been permanently established as a part of the curriculum of Dartmouth alone, not to speak of the other colleges, a few young men with a native taste for it would undoubtedly have been found in every class and these would have cherished and transmitted the sacred fire with increasing ardor until the inevitable time arrived when native genius would be kindled into immortal flame.

III

A new order of native-born music teachers, those who pursued European methods in their instruction, was now arising. The chief of this class was Lowell Mason. Mason was born at Medfield, Mass., and spent his youth and early manhood in Savannah, Ga., where he was engaged in business. A music-lover from early childhood, he carried to the South the psalmody of New England, but, becoming master of a church choir, he felt the inadequacy of existing collections of church music and, with the valuable assistance of a local music teacher, Mr. Abel, prepared a new one suited to his needs.

He came to Boston seeking a publisher and found it in the Handel and Haydn Society, which, in 1822, not only published the collection but gave the society's name to it. It met with great success, running through many editions. In 1826 its compiler delivered a series of lectures in Boston churches on church music which attracted such favorable attention that he was induced to make his home in the city. In time he became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, and, when the Boston Academy of Music was established, largely through his efforts, he was put in charge of it.

At this period began a movement to reform radically our entire system of school instruction, and the moment was propitious for the introduction of music in the public schools, a purpose upon which Mr. Mason had set his heart. In 1830 William C. Woodbridge delivered before the American Institute of Instruction in Boston an address on 'Vocal Music as a Branch of Common Education,' illustrated by Mason's pupils, in which the lecturer, recently returned from Europe, warmly advocated the cultivation of music as an essential element of American, as it was of foreign life. One sentence of his lecture is startling to us of the present generation in its inferential revelation of the primitive nature of juvenile instruction in the United States as late as 1830. Mr. Woodbridge, speaking of music being 'the property of the people' in Germany and Switzerland, heard in field and factory, and in gatherings for pleasure no less than in assemblies for worship, added: 'But we were touched to the heart when we heard its cheering animating strains issuing from the walls of a schoolroom.'

Mr. Woodbridge was an enthusiast over the Pestalozzian method as applied to instruction in music. He not only collected all the literature he could on the subject, but even translated the more important works and turned over the entire material to Mr. Mason. This wise teacher experimented first with the method before adopting it. The success of the trial made him an ardent supporter of the new system of instruction, which completely overthrew the old custom of starting the pupil off with a complete tune and correcting defects as these manifested themselves. The Pestalozzian method is truly the natural one, building up, instead of patching up. This will be seen by examining its principles:

1. To teach sounds before signs (have the pupil learn notes orally first).

2. To lead the pupil to observe and execute differences in sound, instead of explaining these to him, i. e., to make him active instead of passive in learning.

3. To teach one thing at a time—rhythm, melody, expression—instead of a selection embodying all these elements.

4. To have the pupil master each step by practice before passing to the next.

5. To explain principles after practice (the inductive method).

6. Analysis and practice of articulation of speech in order to use it in song.

To apply this revolutionary method to teaching music was the central purpose of the establishment of the Boston Academy of Music. It had a useful career during the fourteen years of its existence. Mr. Mason, like Mr. Adgate, of Philadelphia, believed in 'music for the people,' and his generosity in extending this without considering material profit kept the institution in constant need of funds until it gave up the struggle and closed its doors in 1847.

The Academy was more than a New England institution: it was a national one, in that music teachers in every part of the country wrote to it for guidance in their work. And it left behind it the finest of mmorials, the establishment in Boston, and, through Boston's example, all over the nation, of music in the public schools, not merely as a relief from other studies, but as a study itself. This innovation was made by the city fathers of Boston in 1837, after a trial of the propositions had proved successful. T. Kemper Davis, chairman of the school committee, made a long and learned report upon the subject which is a classic of its kind, and as such may be read with profit by teachers of music, particularly those in the public schools.[56]

Music in the public schools of New York had an independent origin. In 1835 Darius E. Jones experimented with the idea of forming singing classes in the schools and teaching them without compensation. The trial was successful, and the school board gave him permission to continue the work provided no expense was incurred and regular studies were not interfered with. Music in the New York schools was not effectively recognized by provision for compensation until 1853. T. B. Mason, the brother of Lowell Mason, introduced singing in the public schools of Cincinnati. Pittsburgh began such instruction in 1840. Nathaniel D. Gould, a music teacher and composer, claimed to have been the first to teach singing to children in a systematic method. From 1820 onward he organized such classes in New England, New York, and New Jersey.

The recognition by municipal authority of music as an essential element of education has been ratified in the fullest manner by national authority. Philander P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, addressing the National Education Association convened at St. Paul, in July, 1914, asserted that music is of more practical value than any subject of the usual curriculum, except reading and writing, and with these studies, and physical culture and arithmetic, forms the fundamentals in elementary education.

While in the later thirties colleges and universities were not prepared to grant music a place in the academic curriculum, they began to recognize it as an important element of culture, and to extend to it their patronage. In 1838 William Robyn, a professor in St. Louis University, formed, under the auspices of the institution, a musical society called the 'Philharmonic' for the performance of public concerts. These were well patronized.[57]

IV

The German immigration was in full force in the forties, cities such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee becoming the homes of great numbers of this music-loving people. In the broad sense of the term, they formed the greatest educational influence in music that the country had yet received. It is said that wherever two Germans settled in America they organized themselves into a Sängerbund. Tyrolese and Swiss singers and bell-ringers began to tour the country in 1840 and delighted Americans of every class—even now they are popular in the Chautauqua circles. However, when, lured by the success of the jodlers, really fine German bands, such as the Steiermarkers, Gungl's band, the Saxonia and Germania, came over in quest of American dollars, they met with consistent failure, and were forced to dissolve—to the great benefit of American musical education, for the individual members generally became teachers of instrumental music in the localities where they were stranded. It was only by playing dance music and popular airs that the bands met with any success whatsoever. Gungl (whose 'Railroad Galop,' an imitative composition, was the most popular in his répertoire) wrote home to a musical journal in Berlin that music 'lies still in the cradle here and nourishes herself on sugar-teats.'

The sentimental strain in German vocal music of the period made it more popular than German instrumental music, in that the American palate had been prepared for sentimentality by a saccharine sort of psalmody and secular music which was being sprinkled over the country by a second generation of Yankee music teachers of the Billings order. Elijah K. Prouty and Moses E. Cheney were leading representatives of this class. Prouty was a peddler, singing teacher, and piano tuner. Cheney was a leader of a church choir. In 1839 they organized and conducted a musical 'convention' at Montpelier, Vt., at which, with shrewd perception of popular interest in novelty and variety, they practised 'unusual tunes, anthems, male quartets, and duets and solos for both sexes.' For the secular music they used the 'Boston Glee Book and Social Choir,' compiled by George Kingsley. In order to attract the attendance of non-musical people, in the intervals between performances short debates were held between the local ministers, lawyers, and other prominent citizens.

In May, 1848, another musical convention was held in Chicago, which discussed the general question of musical education and the specific one of music in the public schools. Four years later William B. Bradbury led a similar but larger convention. At this convention the 'Alpine Glee Singer,' a compilation by Bradbury, was used for secular music, indicating the strong influence which the elementary sentimentality of German popular music exerted upon Americans. Sugared American psalmody, flavored with German sentimentality, and colored with a crudity of technique almost aboriginal produced that sort of musical candy which we know as the Sunday-school song. Bradbury was a pioneer in the composition and publication of such music, although, to do him justice, the especially deleterious coloring of the mixture was added by his successors, among whom Ira D. Sankey and P. P. Bliss may be mentioned as chief offenders. The collections of this school of musical composers must be reckoned by thousands in editions and millions in numbers of copies. Bradbury alone compiled more than fifty singing books, containing many of his own compositions. Of these collections 'The Jubilee,' published in 1857, sold 200,000 copies; 'Fresh Laurels' (1867), 1,200,000 copies; and a series known as the 'Golden Series,' 2,000,000 copies.

This flood of sentimentality, completely inundating the Sunday-school, poured into the public school, and almost swamped the ark of juvenile education in music which careful hands had just committed to that great stream of popular culture. When music became recognized as an essential element of education, it was inevitable that the only available juvenile songs, those of the Sunday-school, should be introduced in the public schools. Indeed, the singing of anything in the schools was preferable to the entire absence of song, and so this order of music, representing, as it did, the popular taste of the time, marks, although we are loath to say it, an important step forward.

Dr. Lowell Mason was the chief assistant at an event which marks an epoch in American musical education, namely, the birth of the normal musical institute from the so-called musical convention. This occurred in 1856 at North Reading, Mass., where an annual musical convention of the usual sort was converted into a school of a fortnight's duration for instructing its members, particularly teachers, in both musical theory and practice. The example was followed all over the country to the great benefit of musical pedagogy. Associated with Dr. Mason in this work of popularizing music was George F. Root, who journeyed over the country conducting conventions, lecturing, etc.[58]

V

During the second half of the nineteenth century the teaching of music passed in large measure from the hands of single, independent teachers into the direction of music masters associated in institutions for class instruction, which are generally known as conservatories, although this term in its European signification of a large, completely equipped and nationally endowed school of music is misleading. Indeed, the pretense seems to have been deliberate. Dr. Frank Damrosch, in an address on 'The American Conservatory,' before the Music Teachers' National Association at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1906, said:

'The so-called conservatory, college, or university of music ... may be found in every American community.... It is usually organized by an individual whose commercial instincts are stronger than his musical conscience, and who, banking on the dense ignorance of the average citizen in matters of art, offers what seems to be a great bargain in the acquisition of musical ability in one form or another.... There are many such schools which seemingly flourish by the glittering, if empty, promises which they advertise. Some of them confer degrees; ... one of the first musical doctor degrees conferred by the director of one of these schools was on himself!'

While there are hundreds of conservatories of the class described by Dr. Damrosch scattered over the Union, a number of institutions are to be found which rank in thoroughness and comprehensiveness of instruction with the best European conservatories. These have been in every instance of slow growth, the most pretentious in chartered plans having made early and signal failures in the province of musical education, though some of them won success in other musical activities. A typical example of this order is the Academy of Music of New York, whose career is recorded in Chapter VI.

The earliest American conservatory worthy of its name is the Conservatory of Music of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, which was founded in 1857. Its chief contribution to American musical education has been the Peabody concerts, a series of eight performances having been given annually since 1865. From 1872 to 1898 Asger Hamerick, the Danish composer, was director. He organized an orchestra of fifty performers, which became, under his intelligent training, a highly efficient instrument for the rendition of the most advanced music. The programs of his concerts were formed of overtures, symphonies, concertos, suites, and vocal solos. He gave especial attention to works by American, English, and Scandinavian composers, performing for the first time in America many notable compositions, among them a number of his own. The good work of the Peabody concerts, attracting, as it has done, the respectful attention of foreign masters, should be a matter both of encouragement and pride to those who have the cause of American music at heart. It points the way to high attainment in our musical appreciation and notable achievement in native composition.

The year of 1867 is notable in American musical history for the establishment of five leading conservatories or musical colleges: the New England Conservatory in Boston; the Boston Conservatory; the Cincinnati Conservatory; the Oberlin Conservatory; and the Chicago Academy of Music, later known as the Chicago Musical College.

The New England Conservatory was founded by Eben Tourjée, whom Sir George Grove, in his 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' denominates the 'father of the conservatory or class system of instruction in America.' The nature of this system and its advantages have been well expressed by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who said: 'The class system has the advantage over the private instruction of the individual in that, by the participation of several in the same lessons and studies, a true feeling is awakened; and in that it promotes industry, spurs to emulation, and is a preservative from one-sidedness of education and taste.'

Dr. Tourjée, in 1851, at the age of seventeen, formed classes at his home, Fall River, Mass., for instruction in vocal and instrumental music. In 1859 he founded a musical institute at East Greenwich, where he greatly developed his method. In 1863 he visited Europe to gain information concerning the conduct of European conservatories, and upon the ideas thus secured he established the Providence Conservatory of Music, and in 1867 the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. For a time he conducted both schools, then devoted himself exclusively to the latter. From its beginning the Boston institution secured the best masters available and gave a maximum of musical instruction at a minimum of cost. It has sent forth over the country thousands of accomplished pianists, organists, and vocalists, and, what is even more pertinent to the present subject, music teachers, trained in Tourjée's methods. After the founder died (in 1890), Carl Faelten acted as director, until in 1897 he founded a school of his own for instruction in the piano. No school of its kind stands higher in America.

In 1897 George W. Chadwick, the professor of harmony, composition, and orchestration, was made director of the New England Conservatory. For several years Mr. Chadwick had conducted the annual musical festivals at Springfield and Worcester, Mass., and his special attention was thereby directed toward great orchestral and choral performances by the students, whose number was mounting into the thousands. By the generosity of patrons of the Conservatory, especially Eben D. Jordan, president of the trustees, a large building was erected in 1902, containing facilities for instruction superior even to those of European conservatories, and an auditorium, Jordan Hall, whose large size and fine acoustic properties render it one of the important concert halls of the country, use as such being frequently made of it by visiting artists, to the great advantage of the students as well as the general public. The instrumental equipment of the conservatory is large, the collection of organs, including the pipe organ in Jordan Hall, which is one of the largest in the world, being especially notable.

The conservatory possesses one of the best working musical libraries in the country, a unique feature being the choral library of the Boylston Club (founded 1872) and its successor, the Boston Singers, which contains many copies of manuscript treasures in European collections. This library was a gift to the conservatory by George L. Osgood. The Boston Public Library nearby contains the Allen A. Brown collection of musical books and manuscripts, which is excelled in America only by the Congressional Library at Washington. Accordingly, the pupils of the conservatory have at hand every facility for acquiring a musical education which the most ardent student could desire. It is not surprising that among its three thousand and more students every one of the forty-eight states of the Union is represented, as well as a dozen foreign countries, even distant Russia and Turkey.

The curriculum of the conservatory has been generally described by Frederick W. Colburn in 'The Musical Observer' for July, 1913. Mr. Colburn, after mentioning special features, such as the conservatory orchestra of seventy-five members, affording the training and routine indispensable to professional performers whose ranks it is annually supplying, says: 'While the new is studied, the fundamentals are not lost sight of. All the courses have been planned to avoid turning out narrow and one-sided specialists. The management realizes that the professional musician has need of very broad and very correct culture. The students listen to lectures on the history and theory of music from such authorities as Louis C. Elson and Wallace Goodrich. The modern languages and English diction are taught by experts, several of whom are authors of their own text-books. The pianoforte instruction follows approved methods; it shows much of the influence of the late Carl Baermann, one of the most eminent of the German musicians who have settled in this country. The vocal instruction is along the lines of the old Italian method which has formed the voices of most of the world's great singers. The teaching of the organ accords with the practice of the best German and French organists. In all departments there is present the idea of thoroughly grounding the student in the essentials of musical art and of avoiding easy, ready-made and get-culture-quick methods.'

The Boston Conservatory, second in the list of five founded in 1867, was organized by Julius Eichberg, a distinguished German violinist and composer, who had been, since 1859, director of the orchestra at the Boston Museum. This speedily won and long maintained a high reputation, particularly for instruction in the violin, on which subject Eichberg prepared a number of valuable text-books.

The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was founded by Clara Bauer, who still is active in its management, having charge of the home for the female pupils. This was the first conservatory in the country to establish a residence department—indeed, its group of buildings and park-like grounds give the conservatory a truly academic aspect possessed by few institutions of its kind that are situated in cities. Miss Bauer, however, recognized from the beginning that the all-important element of a conservatory was its teaching force. She secured representative talent in the various branches of music from the various European musical centres, thereby securing warm approbation of the institution from foreign musical artists and critics. The faculty now numbers sixty members; it contains artists notable for excellence in every branch of musical arts and pedagogy. General cultural studies, such as dramatic art, literature, and modern languages, are conducted with special application to their relation to music.

The Cincinnati Conservatory was the first to conduct a summer music school. The sessions have been uninterrupted since 1867. Attended largely by music teachers, they have greatly advanced the cause of musical education in the territory tributary to the city.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, at Oberlin, presents so many object lessons of musical pedagogy that it demands rather extended treatment here.

In the first place, the institution had a natural origin: it was formed to teach psalmody to a religious community and, in growing beyond this limited field by adding one musical feature after another as the developing taste of the people demanded, it typifies the history of music in the nation. Secondly, the conservatory has a proper environment. It was planted in a soil already enriched by culture, Oberlin being the seat of a college distinguished for progressive ideas and high ideals, the reaction of which upon musical work is always inspiring—indeed, is essential to the highest achievement. Thirdly, the Oberlin Conservatory has a proper organization. It is a social democracy and thereby calculated to produce that free and fraternal spirit which is the soul of art. Young men and women meet on equal terms and there are no distinctions among them based on wealth or nationality or even race, Oberlin having been the first college to include negroes among its students. Lastly, the conservatory has a sound program and is living up to this as well as could be expected in view of the pressure exerted on all 'schools of the people,' to supply immediate demands. It believes in constructive work, in learning by doing. Thus it regards a practical knowledge of the science of musical composition as necessary to an intelligent appreciation of musical masterpieces, and to this end has established a course in theory and composition which requires four years of hard study and assiduous practice. The class system of instruction is the one adopted as the chief method, it being supplemented by private instruction.

Dr. Florens Ziegfeld, a distinguished German pianist, still conducts (1915) the conservatory which he founded in Chicago—the last of the five started in 1867—under the name of the Chicago Academy of Music, and which is now called the Chicago Musical College. The institution was burned out in the great fire of 1871, but with indomitable courage Dr. Ziegfeld at once secured new quarters and continued his classes. The course of study was steadily enlarged until now it includes every department of music and the principal modern languages, the faculty being one of the strongest in the country, comparing favorably with those of European conservatories. By authority of the State of Illinois the college grants music teachers' certificates and confers musical degrees. The college is finely situated on Michigan Boulevard, overlooking Lake Michigan and Grant Park. It contains a concert hall seating 1,000. A student orchestra of seventy members is maintained, affording practical training in conducting and ensemble playing.

In 1871 a conservatory of music was established in Jacksonville, Ill., the seat of Illinois College. Its founder was Professor W. D. Sanders, a leading Western educator, and its first director was I. B. Poznanski, a violinist and composer who later became instructor at the Royal Conservatory, London. In 1903 the conservatory was merged with the college. The Cleveland Conservatory of Music was also founded in 1871. It adopted the European conservatory method of instruction.

In 1873 Northwestern University at Evanston, Ill., became a co-educational institution and at once established a 'Conservatory of Music' that began, and for many years thereafter remained, on a low plane of instruction. The university authorities, in the manner of old-time monarchs, 'farmed out' to the director of the conservatory the privilege of running the business for a percentage of the receipts, and gave him a free hand and full responsibility. Naturally the conservatory was conducted in a way to produce the greatest immediate returns.

In 1891 Prof. P. C. Lutkin was put in charge of the conservatory. He insisted that the title be dropped and that the school be made a department of the university, directly under control of the university authorities; and that its director should receive a full professorship with a fixed salary, in order that educational ideals should not be compromised by financial considerations. These changes were authorized, and Professor Lutkin radically revised and extended the curriculum to make it conform to academic standards. By 1895 a four-years course was developed, to correspond with that of the Liberal Arts department. The 'Department of Music' then assumed the title of 'School of Music' and became a coördinate division of the university, like the School of Law, the School of Mines, etc., with its own dean and faculty. Its pupils, of course, retained all the opportunities for general culture afforded by the college of Liberal Arts.

In an address delivered before the Music Teachers' National Association at Oberlin in 1906, Professor Lutkin said: 'The exact point where general education should give way to the study of music is a much discussed one, and we will not stop to consider it here, except to say that we have placed it at the point of entrance-requirements in the College of Liberal Arts. The fact that the students are able to pursue advanced work in history of music, harmony, counterpoint, analysis, etc., is of itself a clear index as to their mental capacity, and places them, without doubt, upon a plane of mentality quite up to that required of college students.' The music department of the Northwestern University now ranks with the best conservatories in the country.

Concerts have always formed the leading element in developing American appreciation of music. The enthusiasm created by the festivals conducted in Cincinnati by Theodore Thomas in the early seventies led directly to the establishment in 1878 of the Cincinnati College of Music by Miss Dora Nelson. The institution was planned along the lines of European conservatories, with a close relation to superior public performances in the city, the patrons of which were patrons of the college. With a fine faculty the institution has retained to the present the high reputation it won at the outset. Theodore Thomas was the first musical director of the school, and among his successors is Frank Van der Stucken.

Of the important Chicago schools of music the earliest was the Chicago Conservatory, established in 1884. Quite a typical institution is the American Conservatory of Chicago. It was founded in 1886 by its present head, President John J. Hattstaedt, with the assistance of several of Chicago's music-loving citizens. Its quarters were in Weber Hall Building, corner of Wabash Avenue and Jackson Street, which were retained for ten years, when the conservatory was removed to the adjoining building—Kimball Hall, where it still remains.

From a small institution it has grown to be one of America's largest schools of music, registering about 2,000 students annually. The faculty numbers seventy-five, and contains many teachers of national reputation. A modern and thorough curriculum includes all branches of instrumental and vocal music, theory and composition, dramatic art, expression, physical culture, and modern languages. Special features are: a complete and well-established Normal School, a student's orchestra, a musical bureau and a carefully arranged series of faculty and pupils' recitals.

In 1885 two conservatories, the American Institute of Applied Music and the National Conservatory of Music, were established in New York. Miss Kate S. Chittenden was the founder of the Institute, Mrs. Jeannette M. Thurber of the Conservatory. Both are flourishing to-day under control of the founders and with excellent faculties and ample musical facilities.

The National Conservatory, because of certain philanthropic features, is deserving of special mention as a type of institution which is not wholly commercial in its ends, and which has prepared the way for a type that is purely artistic in its purposes. It offers musical instruction to every applicant without regard to race, sex, or creed, the sole condition being that he shall give proof of a natural talent for music; this instruction it imparts without cost to those unable to pay.

The title of National Conservatory is formally justified by the fact that it was chartered in 1891 by a special act of Congress, the official home being designated as Washington. A far better claim to the title could be based on the facts that names of even more than national fame appear on the roll of its faculty from the beginning, when such musicians as Rafael Joseffy, Camilla Urso, and Victor Herbert were connected with the institution, down through Dvořák's brilliant régime to the present day.

The Conservatory at its outset secured experts in special lines of music as instructors. For three years (1892-95) Dr. Antonin Dvořák was its director. Under his management liberal prizes were awarded for original compositions, and the works, a symphony by Henry Schoenefeld, a piano concerto by Joshua Phillen, a suite for string orchestra by Frederick Bullard, and a cantata by Horatio W. Parker, were performed in public concert. Under the direction of the distinguished composer the National Conservatory orchestra became notable not only for artistic excellence, but, what pertains more to the present subject, for the superior training it afforded poor young men of talent, and the places this enabled them to obtain in leading American orchestras. This work, of course, did not cease with Dr. Dvořák's retirement.

An institution incorporating in a systematic and substantial way the public and philanthropic spirit which has called into existence so many of our conservatories and schools of music is the Institute of Musical Art of the City of New York. This is the model institution of its kind in America; and, as there is promise that its example will be followed in other cities of the Union, leading to the establishment of musical education on a high and uniform plane, it deserves special notice.

Recognizing that schools of music, inaugurated with fine ideals and a sound program to attain these, have almost without exception been forced by the need of funds to lower their standard and modify their curricula to suit the popular demand for easy and flashy courses, Dr. Frank Damrosch determined to found an institution wherein commercial considerations would not enter. In James Loeb, a New York banker, he found a patron of art in thorough sympathy with the project. By a fund of a half million dollars, given in memory of his mother, Betty Loeb, Mr. Loeb put the splendid idea into concrete form, and in 1905 established and endowed the Institute of Musical Art with Dr. Damrosch as its director.

The purpose of the Institute is to provide thorough and comprehensive courses in music, each of which is planned to include every study necessary for mastering a particular branch of music, and all of which taken together cover the whole art. The Institute is enabled to execute this plan inflexibly because it is independent of tuition fees, since the revenue from these is supplemented by the interest of the funds. Accordingly the fees have been fixed at moderate and uniform rates, while no expense is spared in securing the best talent available as a teaching and training force.

The roll of the faculty contains seventy-seven names. The faculty council which directs the policy of the Institute consists of the director and five other experts. Since operatic and concert managers agree that individual instruction and criticism cannot be too carefully given in the case of students intending to make the performance of music a profession, and, as this thorough system of education is equally beneficial to the amateur, it has been adopted by the Institute. Theoretical subjects are the only ones taught in class.

In addition to the direct personal teaching which the student receives, he is surrounded by artistic and educational influences calculated to broaden his general knowledge and culture and to improve his taste and discrimination. The discipline which is an essential principle of the Institute, and which is lacking in private instruction, where the pupil often demands and obtains relaxing modifications of the instructor's system to suit his inclinations, since he is paying for his education, is of the highest value in developing character. Students of an art which in its nature tends to overstimulate the emotional nature need a corrective cultivation of the powers of the intellect and the will which students of other subjects do not so much require, since, from their studies, intellectual development is acquired directly and, reason being the governor of the will, control of this great moral force is indirectly imparted.

Like the National Conservatory the Institute is open to students of both sexes, irrespective of creed or race. The only demand is that they give proof of general intelligence, musical ability and serious purpose. Every regular student is required to follow a prescribed course not only in the specific branch which he has selected, but, in order to provide a proper foundation for this, in the subject of music in general. The student begins the course at the stage for which his attainments and abilities have prepared him, as these are indicated by three tests: as to his general knowledge of music; as to his sense of musical hearing; as to his vocal or instrumental talent.

The departments of study are singing, piano, organ, stringed instruments, orchestra, public school music and theoretic course. The courses are divided into seven grades, the last four being post-graduate. The post-graduate diplomas are of two types, called teachers' and artists'. For the teachers' diploma two grades of pedagogy and advanced work in theory and technique are required; for the artists', either two or three grades in theory, technique, and ear training, according to the proficiency of the student, which is tested not only by work done in the Institute, but by a public recital before musicians not connected with the Institute. The work of the seventh grade in the artists' course is confined to the study of composition in the various forms of complete sonata, chamber music, vocal forms, overture and orchestration. A prize sufficient to provide for a year of European life and experience is given annually to that graduate in any of the artists' courses, or in composition, whom the faculty and trustees think most deserving of the award and distinction.

The leading schools of music in Canada are the Toronto Conservatory of Music and the Conservatorium of Music in McGill University at Montreal.

The Toronto Conservatory was founded by the late Dr. Fisher in 1886 and opened in 1887. In the thoroughness of its courses and the completeness of its equipment it ranks with the best conservatories in Europe. In 1897 it purchased its present centrally located site, in close proximity to the cluster of educational and public buildings, and began the erection of the structures which now form its commodious home. Its music hall is architecturally one of the finest edifices of the kind and its auditorium is acoustically one of the most satisfactory halls in Canada for chamber music and other recitals. It contains a three-manual concert organ which is a masterpiece of Canadian workmanship. The main hall is supplemented by smaller ones for lectures and recitals and by practice rooms equipped with two-manual organs. The musical equipment in general is ample and comprehensive, meeting the needs of the 2,500 pupils in attendance.

On the death of Dr. Fisher in 1913, Dr. A. S. Vogt, whose work as conductor of the Mendelssohn Choir of Toronto is well known, and who had been for many years teacher of piano in the Conservatory, was advanced to the position of director. The faculty consists of 139 professors and instructors. It is almost exclusively British in composition, in striking contrast to the faculties of leading conservatories in the United States, on whose roll Continental European names abound, often to the point of a majority. However, many of the instructors have received their education at foreign conservatories.

The Conservatory is divided into eleven departments, schools for the piano, the voice, the organ, the violin, and other stringed instruments, theoretical instruction, embracing harmony, counterpoint, composition, orchestration, musical history and acoustics, orchestral and band music, expression (including education, physical culture, etc.), modern languages, piano tuning, and kindergarten music method. The extremely practical elements of this curriculum indicate the attention paid to the fundamental needs of the public.

The Conservatory maintains an orchestra for practice in routine and training for students sufficiently advanced to justify their assignment to places in the organization. Frank E. Blatchford, of the violin faculty, who is also concert master of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, is the conductor.

The Conservatory is affiliated with its near neighbor, the University of Toronto. Students who pass the conservatory examinations in musical theory are exempted from corresponding examinations by the University for the degree of Bachelor of Music. In its desire to spread at least a measure of musical knowledge and appreciation among the people, the conservatory conducts correspondence courses in musical theory, and, for the convenience of practice, especially in the piano, maintains eleven branches in the outlying residential districts of Toronto.

The McGill University Conservatorium was opened in 1904. The Conservatorium, however, was then only in its experimental stage and it was not until October, 1908, that the connecting link between the University and the Conservatorium was completed by the appointment as director of Dr. Harry Crane Perrin, professor of music in the University. In 1909 the orchestra was formed, which was composed of students of the Conservatorium, and in February of that year they gave their first orchestral concert.

VI

Henry Dike Sleeper, professor of music in Smith College, a women's college of the first rank, has made an interesting analysis of the character of musical instruction given in the leading universities and colleges where the subject is taught. He says that there are four ideals of study:

1. Musical composition: Great emphasis is laid on this at the University of Pennsylvania, and it is a predominant, though lesser element in the schemes of Harvard and Yale.

2. Public performance: This is the chief feature of education in the conservatories affiliated with, but not a part of the regular academic course. These conservatories are founded largely in the West and South, and are connected with colleges that either are for women or are co-educational.

3. Culture: Amherst, Beloit, Cornell, and Tufts are examples of institutions where the music courses tend chiefly to imparting musical appreciation.

4. A balance of the three: composition, concerts, culture. Examples of where this ideal of rounded development is sought for are the women's colleges, Smith and Mount Holyoke, and co-educational institutions, such as Oberlin and Ohio Wesleyan, and the State Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

In the light they throw on the status of musical education in American universities the following authoritative statistics, the latest of the kind compiled, are illuminating:

In a monograph on 'Music Instruction in the United States,' prepared by Arthur L. Manchester after exhaustive inquiry and published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1908, the enrollment of students of music in 151 colleges and universities was 18,971, of whom 5,257 were men and 13,714 were women. There was an average attendance in each institution of about 125.

Dr. Rudolf Tombo, registrar of Columbia University, in an article in 'Science' for December 25, 1908, and January 1, 1909, stated that from statistics supplied him by twenty-five leading universities, not counting summer schools conducted under their auspices, ten had departments of music and five had courses of music. In a total attendance in all departments of all the twenty-five universities amounting to 35,885, the students of music numbered 1,940, which is only 5.4 per cent. of the total.

When the great popular interest in music, as exhibited by the attendance at operas, concerts, and musical festivals, is taken into consideration, this low percentage would indicate that the universities are not adopting attractive methods of musical instruction. Evidently the cause of higher musical education will be more readily served by improving the character of instruction in the conservatories, where enthusiasm among the students prevails, than by attempting to wake up university men from their indifference to music—for enthusiasm is a prerequisite in all studies and pursuits.

The pioneer in creating a department of music in American universities was John K. Paine, teacher of music in Harvard in one capacity or another from 1862 until 1905, when he retired on a pension. Although practical music courses, piano-playing and singing, were taught in women's colleges, notably Vassar, before Mr. Paine began his work in Harvard, he was the first teacher to direct his energies toward establishing music as an academic study, on an equality with all the other branches, counting like them for the arts degrees of A. B. and A. M.

The history of music is obviously an academic study, and Mr. Paine judiciously began his campaign by securing permission in 1870 to deliver a university course of lectures on the subject. In 1870 he had persuaded the faculty to introduce harmony and counterpoint in the curriculum, counting for the bachelor of arts degree. After this vital concession, the faculty could not well deny to music full standing in the university. In 1875 Mr. Paine was appointed professor of music.

The indifference of the students to the art, and their prejudice against music as an academic study, were harder to contend with. For twenty years Prof. Paine carried on his work without assistance in instruction and with small classes. Then the students seemed suddenly to wake up to the fact that a department of music conducted on the high plane of Oxford and the great German universities was a matter to be proud of, and they began in increasing numbers to embrace the rare advantage extended to them. When Prof. Paine retired he had three assistants in his work and over two hundred students in his classes.

Prof. Walter R. Spalding, Mr. Paine's successor, aided by able teachers, such as Edward Burlingame Hill, instructor in musical history, have continued the good work of the founder. The course is essentially theoretical; it includes harmony, counterpoint, musical form, musical history, and the higher branches of composition, including orchestration. In 1912 the students of the department established the 'Harvard Musical Review,' a publication of high ideals.

Professor Paine, and Professors Parker and MacDowell, his contemporaries at Yale and Columbia, respectively, achieved fame as practical exponents of the art in its highest realm. Professors of music in European universities as a rule are learned theorists and historians, but not composers. It is a moot question which class of instructors is the better. In behalf of instruction by a creative genius it is claimed that it inspires students with pride in their teacher and, if training is afforded in composition, with desire to emulate his achievements. In behalf of the academic drill-master it is urged that the thorough grounding which he imparts develops that all-round ability in music which, when the purpose is in time realized by students, will itself generate enthusiasm. The respective merits of the two systems may thus be summed up: the American early develops musical appreciation, the European musical knowledge. Since these qualities have reciprocal influence, it would seem that the two systems should be combined, at least in America, where musical appreciation on the part of the student can not always be assumed, as in Europe.

Of the departments of music in women's colleges, that in Wellesley may be considered the most academic. A school of music was established in 1875, its pupils being drawn chiefly from the special students, who lacked preparation for the regular college studies and so were limited to the so-called 'accomplishments' of music and drawing, with a smattering of literature. As it became increasingly evident that the emphasis in the school of music was on performance—the development of highly specialized skill—and that the predominating interests in the college were intellectual rather than vocational, the school was seen to be out of place. The students diminished in members to less than 100 in 1895. In 1896-7 the school was converted into a regular department of the college, the curriculum in music being made mainly theoretical, the courses being harmony, counterpoint, musical form, history of music, and free composition. The director since 1897 has been Hamilton C. Macdougall. There are eight other professors in the department faculty, and students number over two hundred. In 1907 Billings Hall was erected for the use of the department. While practice in music has been subordinated to theory, it has been retained and even improved since the school became the department. Indeed, in 1897 a college orchestra was organized.

The four leading women's colleges in the East, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke, have much the same curriculum in music, instruction being given in both theory and practice with mutual benefit resulting from the reacting influence one on the other. In this respect it would seem that these institutions have a decided advantage over such universities as Harvard, where there is no training in musical performance.

In the same year that music was made a part of the curriculum of Harvard (1875), classes in music were inaugurated at the University of Pennsylvania under Professor Hugh A. Clarke. As has already been stated, the attention paid to composition is the distinguishing feature of the course.

In 1894 the department of music was established in Yale University, and Horatio W. Parker, Mus. D., was placed at its head. At present there are nine other professors and instructors in the faculty of the department. The aims of Dr. Parker and his assistants are to provide adequate instruction for those who desire to become musicians by profession, either as teachers or as composers, and to afford a course of study for those who intend to devote themselves to musical criticism and the literature of music. Accordingly the work of the department is divided into practical and theoretical courses. The practical courses consist of instruction in pianoforte, organ, violin, and violoncello playing, in singing, and in chamber music (ensemble-playing). No student is admitted to a practical course other than singing and violoncello playing unless he is also taking at least one of the theoretical courses.

The theoretical courses are subdivided into elementary and advanced. The former class includes harmony, counterpoint, and the history of music; the latter class instrumentation, advanced orchestration and conducting, and strict and free composition. Both courses in composition are under the immediate direction of Dr. Parker, whose special fitness has been commented upon in another chapter. Dr. Parker requires every student in the composition courses to produce an extended original work. This usually takes the form of a sonata. The students are incited to excel in original composition as well as in artistic performance by the Sandford Fellowship, which gives two years' study abroad to the most gifted performer who shall also show marked ability as a composer.

Allied with the department is the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, a complete and well-equipped organization of seventy players, which gives a series of concerts during the winter. It affords opportunity to the students of orchestration to hear their work actually and adequately played, and, when its quality warrants, to have the composition publicly performed. Several original works are thus produced every year. They are commonly overtures, but piano concertos and other works have occasionally been presented.

The orchestra also opens to the student a gateway into professional life by admitting to it those whose performance on the violin or violoncello has been approved. Students of the piano, as well as of the violin, are allowed to rehearse with the orchestra and even to perform publicly if their fitness to do so has been demonstrated. The students give informal recitals from time to time and, toward the end of the college year, a concert, accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra.

This insistence on the study of the theory of music and the demonstration of the theoretical principles by original composition as the only proper foundation of education in the art are the distinguishing characteristics of the Yale department of music, and the practical achievements of Dr. Parker and his students would seem to justify the soundness of the idea.

In 1896 Edward MacDowell, the composer, was called to the chair of music in Columbia University. Mr. MacDowell, either because of his temperament or the limitations imposed by the university on his work, did not find the position so congenial as Dr. Parker has done at Yale. Instead of being inspired by teaching to greater feats of composition, Mr. MacDowell seemed hampered, and, to the great loss of American music, produced fewer and fewer of those fine works which cause him to be acclaimed as the greatest of American composers. He resigned the position in 1904, two years before his death.

In 1906 the department of music which had developed independently in the Teachers' College was combined with the department in the university to form the Columbia School of Music. Cornelius Rübner, Mus. D., is the present head. The declared aims of Prof. Rübner and his four associates in the faculty of the school are to treat music historically and æsthetically, as an element of liberal culture; to teach it scientifically and technically, with a view to training musicians who shall be competent to teach and compose; and to provide practical training in orchestral music. There are a university chorus and an orchestra (the Columbia Philharmonic) in connection with the school, which present much the same opportunities to the students as those afforded by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra to the Yale students. The school holds two annual concerts of original compositions by its students and conducts many other concerts as well as public lectures and recitals.

The various courses may be counted toward the degrees of bachelor of music, of arts, of science, and master of arts. The curriculum includes the history of music, conducted by Prof. Daniel Gregory Mason; harmony, counterpoint, sight-singing and playing; composition, orchestration, and symphonic form, conducted by Prof. Rübner. The school also offers courses in teaching and supervising music at the Teachers College. The equipment of the school is large and comprehensive. The department of music in the University Library contains a well-selected working collection not only of treatises but also of compositions. The private library of Anton Seidl, consisting of 1,220 scores, which was presented to the university, has been placed in the rooms of the School of Music.

The University School of Music at Ann Arbor, which is conducted by the Musical Society of the University of Michigan, was founded by Prof. Henry S. Frieze, and its membership is restricted to officers, graduates, and students of the university. In 1888 the present head of the school, Albert A. Stanley, took charge. He greatly strengthened the technical and theoretical work. Under his direction the policy of the school has been to train a few students thoroughly rather than many superficially. The courses are those generally given in schools of music connected with American universities: harmony, single and double counterpoint; canon and fugue; history of music; analysis and criticism; musical appreciation.

Since our Western State universities form each the summit of public education in its state, such institutions as Michigan pay much attention to training teachers of music in the public schools. The University of Wisconsin goes much further than this. In connection with its admirable University School of Music, which is one of the best in the country in that not only the theory of music is taught in the most approved academic fashion, but practice is also afforded in choral and instrumental music, and it has established a 'university extension' division for educating the whole people of the state in music.

As stated in a bulletin of the university, the School of Music stands ready to assist any community in strengthening its musical life by the following means:

1.It gives advice to communities desiring such aid, by sending to it an expert who studies the situation, and, with local representatives, prepares a plan of action.

2. It supplies lists of materials, names of persons and books that would be helpful to the plan.

3. It rents out at low cost such materials, including chorus music and material for bands and orchestras.

4. It supplies at reasonable prices musical attractions of high quality and wide variety, such as concerts and lecture recitals—singly or in series.

5. It assists in providing competent music teachers to communities which are too small to support them unaided. These teachers direct the music in the public schools and assist in general community music, both vocal and instrumental, and in the music of churches and social organizations.

6. Through the coöperation of the Wisconsin University School of Music, the American Federation of Music, and other organizations, it assists in building up bands and orchestras throughout the State by supplying organizers and teachers.

7. It conducts correspondence courses in which experts give advice in solving the various problems which arise in connection with school and church music, bands, orchestras, choruses, and concerts.

Truly an extensive program and one worthy of emulation.

VII

The introduction of music into the public schools has already been discussed. It is a great tribute to the soundness of the pedagogic principles laid down by Mason and Woodbridge, the pioneers in juvenile musical education, that, despite the many new methods which have been tried, music in the public school is largely conducted along the original lines. Singing in chorus with use of specially prepared and successively graded exercises printed on charts or written on the blackboard and song books, and, most important of all, under the leadership of a teacher with winning personality and knowledge of the childish mind, has been found to produce the best results. So great proficiency has been achieved in the training of juvenile choruses for musical festivals that the only really satisfactory choruses given by a great multitude of persons are the choruses of children, some of which have exceeded three thousand voices.

The basis of juvenile instruction in music is marked rhythm and simple melody, with a short range of pitch, which are best taught in unison. The voices of the children with a good natural ear being fortunately in a large majority they tend to correct the defective auditory perception of the minority.

When the voices of the children are sufficiently trained by singing together simple rote songs, musical analysis is begun. The notes are taught to be recognized first by the ear, and then by the eye, and a practical application of this knowledge is made by exercises and songs. The same general process is pursued until, by the time the pupil reaches the higher grades, he has acquired an ability to sing at sight any new song which a non-professional musician is likely to be called on to render.

In small American towns the regular teachers in the public schools carry on musical exercises. But they are not without easy access to knowledge of approved methods, for this is published in a special magazine, 'The School Music Monthly,' which was established in 1900. Many other magazines, educational as well as musical, contain articles and even departments on the subject.

Furthermore, there exists a great and influential organization, the Music Teachers' National Association, which was founded in 1876 with Dr. Eben Tourjée as its president. This uses every means in the power of an extra-governmental association to keep up the standard of musical education in the country. It holds annual sessions wherein methods in musical pedagogy are presented and discussed. In many states similar associations are found whose membership is confined to music teachers in the state. These are not affiliated with the National Association, and their activities are less general in scope, although of more immediate interest to the members because applied to matters of special concern.

Cities of from 8,000 to 200,000 inhabitants usually employ a special teacher to direct instruction in music in the public schools. Larger cities have a number of these teachers and one or more supervisors or directors of public school music. New York, for example, has one director, one assistant director and fifty-six special teachers. From the vastness and complexity of the situation in the largest cities, musical education has of necessity become highly systematized and correspondingly efficient.

New York perfected its system about 1900. The capstone may be said to be the public musical lectures and performances given in connection with the evening lecture courses presented in the public schools and other public buildings under the general auspices of the Board of Education and the special supervision of Dr. Henry M. Leipziger.

Indeed, it is only since the beginning of the century that the country in general has come to recognize at all adequately the supreme importance of musical culture to community or civic life. As a result of this recognition there has been a general movement in the central and western states, and in encouragement of the study of music to add the forces of private instruction to public by giving credit in the schools for musical work done outside of them, which credit many state universities have in turn accepted by admitting high school graduates upon their certificates.

A more spectacular expression of appreciation of the value of music to community life is the growing use of children's singing for musical festivals, concerts, and pageants. In many cities the performance by public school children of concerts ranging from simple unison songs to part songs, cantatas, and even light operas has become a regular feature of community life. In many cases school orchestras and bands have accompanied the choruses. In this way the public schools have become foreshadowings of the conservatories and the university schools of music. In time the weak spot in our higher musical curricula, the course in 'musical appreciation' which so many idlers follow as a 'royal road' to a musical education (although it is found in none of the Royal Conservatories of Europe), will have no excuse for being retained, for our high school pupils will already possess it in sufficient measure to pursue with zest the hard technical courses the mastery of which is necessary to the making of a real musician.

VIII

While the American people have shown themselves opposed to the conduct or subsidization of music by the national government, as this has been often proposed in plans for a national conservatory, we have seen, in the case of Wisconsin, that this does not apply to the state governments, at least in respect to the feature of popular education in music. Still less does it apply to the conduct of music by the municipal government. For many years the 'city fathers' of most American municipalities have provided band concerts in the public parks during the summer season. The programs of these concerts, however, until quite recently, were planned with little regard to education of the people in appreciation of the best music—the selections being of the so-called 'popular' order, the prevalent opinion of the directors being that the mass of the American people did not enjoy music of a high order.

A few far-seeing men, whose prescience was based on long and intimate acquaintance with the musical taste of every class in the community, had a confident faith that if selections of the best music were placed on the programs of the park concerts the public would become rapidly educated to prefer them to the other selections. This was done, and the result showed that the proposers of the innovation had been, if anything, too reserved in their prophecy. From the very beginning the new selections met with favor. Music lovers, many attending for the first time, crowded into the parks to hear the concerts and, by their intense interest during the performance and enthusiastic hand-clapping at its close, they not only silenced opposition, but even converted it into approval.

Said Arthur Farwell, supervisor of municipal music in New York from 1910 to 1913, in 'The Craftsmen' (Nov., 1910): 'The little comedy of resistance to classical music on the part of the average American man ends when he finds himself one of fifteen thousand similar persons—as happened repeatedly in New York this summer—listening in perfect silence to the great musical imaginings of the age by that most wonderful of instruments, the modern orchestra in the hands of a capable leader.'

New York is the acknowledged leader of American cities, and in many respects is their model in this development of municipal music from the most defective of instrumentalities for educating the people in musical appreciation into possibly its most effective one. Accordingly the story of the regeneration wrought in this municipality will indicate better than any other account the movement in the same direction all over the country. And for purposes of record it is well to quote Mr. Farwell, who in his official position was mainly responsible for the revolution:

'Municipal music in New York falls within the province of two departments, the Department of Parks and the Department of Docks and Ferries. It has been customary in the past to have frequent band and orchestral concerts at the Mall in Central Park with organizations of some size, and to have weekly concerts by smaller bands of twenty-one men and a leader in a number of the other parks. It has also been customary to have concerts nightly on all of the nine recreation piers on the North and East Rivers.

'Without describing the status of most of the music in the past, it may at least be said that the administrations supporting it let the work out to many independent band leaders, without requiring the upholding of musical standards, or having the means to uphold them, and without even suggesting such standards.

'The task of the new department heads, Charles B. Stover, Commissioner of the Department of Parks, and Calvin Tomkins, Commissioner of the Department of Docks and Ferries,[59] was therefore to place the work of providing municipal music upon a basis admitting of musical standards, and thus to make possible the systematic carrying out of new and progressive ideas.

'In the Park Department, Commissioner Stover's first act in extending the scope and influence of the municipal music was to increase the number of music centres. Most important of all, he increased the number of symphony orchestras to two, and opened a new music centre for orchestral music at McGowan's Pass in the upper end of the park, where there is a natural amphitheatre. The crowds from the upper East Side that frequent this portion of the park are made up of persons who for the most part have never heard a symphony orchestra. It is an interesting fact that at the first concert given them there was much curiosity, but little real response, up to the performance of a movement from a Beethoven symphony, which brought forth prolonged and enthusiastic applause until an encore number was played. The concerts at McGowan's Pass have grown steadily and rapidly in popularity, eager audiences of from four to six thousand, or more, assembling at every performance....

'One other feature of fundamental importance in any truly national development, a feature wholly new, has marked the season's concerts in Central Park. This is the establishment by Commissioner Stover of a rule that each of the two orchestras shall perform one new or little-heard composition by an American composer each week. This is a step of the utmost moment, not so much in the mere gaining of a hearing for the works now performed, as in the recognition of the composers of our own land as a factor in the creation of America's dawning musical democracy.

'On the recreation piers the band concerts provided by the Dock Department have been enjoyed by many thousands. An innovation there has been to classify the program, and give the concerts distinctive character on different evenings—an Italian Opera Night, American Night, Wagner Night, Folk Songs and Dances, German-Slavonic Night, etc....

'In these activities of only a single summer, it will be seen what a vista of possibilities has been revealed. If these developments have any meaning whatsoever, they have a meaning of the deepest sort for every American city and village. The magnitude of New York's operations is not the most important point. We are most deeply concerned with the spirit of these progressive activities, a spirit which may find its appropriate expression wherever there exists a community, large or small, which senses the upward trend of American humanity and democracy.'

M. M. M.

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