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Certainly we are all agreed that this beautiful art, which comes into our lives with a thousand delightful ministries, should be put on a sound educational basis, and intrusted for purposes of direction and development only to teachers who understandingly and lovingly appreciate its subleties and its beauty, its spirit and its power.

MUSIC IN THE HIGH SCHOOL

OSBOURNE MC CONATHY, SUPERVISOR OF MUSIC, CHELSEA, MASS. The honor of addressing this body on the subject of high-school music has been extended to me because, in the city of Chelsea, Massachusetts, where I serve as supervisor of music in the public schools, the subject of music has been given a prominence in the high-school curriculum that, so far as I am aware, has not been given elsewhere. But in many places the value of music in popular education is being recognized as never before; high schools all over the country are introducing or are planning to introduce the study of music in one or more of its phases as special elective work, in addition to the almost universal practice of high-school chorus drill. Believing that it is the wish of those who have invited me to speak, I shall devote the time allowed me to describing frankly the plan of special music courses now in operation in the Chelsea High School, trusting that you will accept this statement as my reason and excuse for the personal element in my paper.

In Chelsea we are trying to answer the question, What opportunities should the high school of today offer its students in the way of a musical education? We do not claim to have solved the many problems suggested by this question, but I offer for your consideration an outline of the results of our study of these problems, an outline embodying methods which our convictions warrant us putting to the test of experience.

Music in the Chelsea High School may be classified under three divisions: the general course required of all students, the special courses, elective, and extra opportunities in the way of glee clubs, for which pupils compete. The general course requires of all students attendance at a one-hour music period each week. In addition pupils of the freshman class may be required to take one hour additional study of sight singing. The pupils of the senior, junior, and sophomore classes form the advanced class or chorus, and the first-year pupils form the freshman chorus.

It would give me pleasure to discuss certain phases of this general work in music in the high school, questions with which we are all vitally concerned. But, as these questions relate to matters which are not peculiar to Chelsea, I shall confine myself to the proper purpose of the paper—a presentation of the special music courses, elective, as outlined in the course of study in the Chelsea High School. These courses are four in number: Course A, Musical Appreciation; Course B, Theoretical Music; Course C, Applied Music; and Course D, Orchestral Ensemble. The special music courses are credited on the same basis as the other high-school subjects, and the marks count for promotion

and graduation just as the other marks are counted. In electing special music the pupil is at liberty to drop other subjects, the choice of subjects. dropped being subject to the advice and consent of the principal of the high school. In one sense music may be considered a favored subject, as students are admitted to the music courses from any of the other regular school courses. The course in musical appreciation, Course A, is a cultural course, which does not require ability to perform. Beginning in the sophomore year, one period a week for three years is given to listening to music with incidental study of musical forms, musical history, biography, and other musical topics with which the intelligent music lover should be acquainted. The constant requirement of the course is that the student shall listen to music. The instructor is an accomplished pianist, and the students are provided with a pianola, rolls, and music for laboratory work.

In the first year of this course the students listen to a number of compositions, the instructor directing their attention to those qualities which may be described under the general heading "musical forms." The character of work done is indicated by the test at the close of the year, which includes such questions, as "What is meant by the words contrapuntal, folksong, symphony, etc.?" The instructor plays several characteristic selections which are unknown to the students, who are required to name the form of each-minuet, gavotte, waltz. The teacher plays portions of compositions which have been studied during the year, and the students are required to name them, and, perhaps, to describe some of their distinguishing characteristics.

In the second year of the course the junior students listen to compositions which illustrate the historic development of music. Reference is here made to the composers only to explain their service in the evolution of art, biographical details being reserved for the following year. In the senior year, besides musical biography, the students have a short course in the physics of music under the instructor of sciences, a course in listening to the various orchestral instruments, and a course in contemporaneous musical matters. Throughout the three years of the course the students are referred to leading articles in the music magazines, the most important of which are to be found in our pui lic library. Books on musical subjects are recommended and sometimes r. viewed in the classroom. The works to be performed at local concerts are plained and the pupils urged to attend as many concerts as they can. The course aims to improve the quality of our concert audiences, and we hope that our students may swell the number of those who listen to good music with telligent discrimination.

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The course in theoretical music occupies two periods a week for four years. Beginning with a review of the elements of music notation, the course undertakes to develop the students' musical perception along the lines of chord construction and connection into the realm of the harmonization of melodies. The course is technical, but analytical rather than constructive. As our scientific course makes no attempt to turn out finished scientists, but pro

poses to establish scientific habits of thought so that later the student may make the most of his opportunities in technical schools; in like manner the course in theoretical music does not aim to give a finished education in harmony or counterpoint; it aims to train the student in those correct habits of musical thought which must be the basis of any higher musical training. If we can teach our students to think in tone and to express themselves fluently and, as far as we go, grammatically, we will have accomplished as much as, in my opinion, a high school should attempt.

Course C is called applied music. Students in this course are given credit in the high school for work done under private teachers in singing or playing on the piano, organ, or any orchestral instrument. The school takes the attitude that the serious study of these subjects is as much a part of the students' education as the study of the subjects taught in the high school. Indeed with no small number of pupils it has a more direct influence on their future lives than most of their other studies.

The practical difficulties in the way of crediting outside study of vocal and instrumental music under private teachers are met in this way: The student, on applying for admission to the course, must present a written recommendation from his music teacher and a written request from his parents, stating that they agree to the conditions of the course. From that time to the end of the year the private teacher is considered practically a member of the high-school faculty, and his bimonthly marks are placed on the students' report cards just as are the marks of the teachers of English or Latin or the other high-school subjects. At the time of sending these marks to the school the private teacher is required to send a report covering the following points: (1) the number of lessons taken since the last report; (2) the average number of hours' practice a week; (3) technical progress made by pupil since preceding report; (4) list of compositions studied by the pupil with remarks concerning the scope and quality of the work done on each composition. As the high school cannot undertake to decide which private teachers are good and which are not sufficiently good to be accepted on the same basis as the faculty of the school, the following plan is designed to keep the standard of marking up to an equality with the marking in other subjects. The school committee elects an examiner who tests the students of Course C at the close of the school year. The tests are based on the bimonthly reports of the private teacher, the student being required to sing or play selections which the reports indicate as having been learned to the satisfaction of the teacher. The examiner decides whether or not a satisfactory standard of work has been required of the student by the private teacher. The examiner's mark is accepted as the student's average for the year. By this plan the private teacher is left free to pursue his own methods and, at the same time, is held to a proper standard in marking his pupils. Students are accepted in Course Cat whatever degree of proficiency they may have attained, and are only required to show satisfactory progress during the year. An important point

to which I especially wish to call your attention is that all students accepted in Course C are required to take the courses in musical appreciation and theoretical music. While the high school recognizes the dignity and necessity of technical proficiency on the student's chosen instrument, and considers. the study of his instrument an essential part of the student's education, it insists on a recognition of the intellectual and aesthetic elements in music as essential and without which manual dexterity is not worthy of credit in an educational institution.

Although deeply interested in high-school orchestras I do not believe that the purpose of this paper will be furthered by discussing at length the details of Course D, orchestral ensemble. I have therefore merely mentioned it, as one of our credited elective courses.

Our reason for introducing these special courses may be briefly stated as threefold. First, they give an opportunity for young men and women with special fondness or taste for music, and for those whose social position makes it desirable to cultivate an intelligent appreciation of good music, to study the subject in a broader and more comprehensive manner than would otherwise be possible except at a sacrifice of time and effort which many would not feel it practicable to make. Or expressed in another way, the courses are designed to improve the quality and the number of our discriminating concert goers. Second, they give an opportunity to young people who are preparing for a musical career to carry on their musical studies while securing the general high-school advantages. Third, by giving to our future musicians a broader education, by adding to the number of cultivated and discriminating concert goers, by requiring a definite and high standard of work from private music teachers, and by showing to the general public the view held by educational authorities that music is a subject worthy of serious study, ranking fairly with other subjects in the high-school course, the special courses aim to bring about a more intelligent attitude toward music, to improve the standards of teachers and performers, and to aid in developing a national love and appreciation of good music.

Permit me to quote a few words from the report of the Music Conference, held in Boston in 1904, which bear directly on the second of the three reasons just given and somewhat on the third. The report says:

Some of the disadvantages, not to say evils, of the present neglect of music in public education are well understood. Among them we cite a frequent example.

A youth reaches the high-school age, desiring to study music with a serious purpose, which desire is approved by parents and teachers. He is met by these school conditions:

First, He must add music to his high-school course as an out-of-school study and thus run the peril of overcrowding, a condition which occasions much parental complaint, and may result in permanent injury to the pupil; or,

Second, He must drop music, which, in the deliberate opinion of his advisers, may be to him one of the most valuable studies of the high-school period; or,

Third, He must leave the high school, for the present school system neither teaches, credits, nor favors the serious study of music. As affirmed by an experienced high

school principal, most pupils of decided musical talent, who continue the study of music, drop out of the high school, and thus lose the advantage of the liberal courses of study there furnished.

These conditions affect the college and higher education as well as the lower schools, and work detriment in various ways. They make it difficult for parents to carry forward the musical education of their children and at the same time to secure the general highschool advantages. They curtail the opportunity of the musical element of society for literary and general training. They lessen the efficiency of the teachers and interpreters of music. Thus, in a word, they detract from the value of an important social agency. The exclusion of music from the body of instruction is believed also to impair literary technique in prose and verse, and to procure a needless separation of music and literature to the detriment of both arts.

The Chelsea High School plans to meet these conditions. Just as we offer a commercial course for those planning a business career, a classical course for the future college student, or a scientific course for those whose plans require it, we provide also a music course for our future musicians. We hope that as far as our influence goes there may be some advance in the educational standards among the musicians of our community.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC AND THE LIGHT IT THROWS UPON MUSICAL EDUCATION

G. STANLEY HALL, PRESIDENT OF CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS. Thought and reason and their vehicle, speech, are all three of them novelties in the natural development history of the soul. In the dim past psychic life was very different from what it is now-feeling, instinct, and impulse were all, and they were common to the whole race, while intellect not only came late but was largely an individual product, causing people to differ from each other and to stand out from the species. It is of this older, larger, deeper, and more generic soul of man that music is the best and truest of all expressions, especially if with singing we consider gesture, mimesis, and dramatic action which arose with it. Music is the speech of this antique, halfburied, racial soul. It did not evolve from love-calls or charms alone, as Darwin thought; nor did it first appear as a tone-colored accompaniment to speech, as Spencer's broader theology taught, for it is older than language, as Weissmann, Boaz, and Gaultmann have shown; while capacity for musical culture is latent in many primitive races. Birds, which evolved long before man appeared on the earth, practiced this art, and so did animals and even insects, the very first of all creatures to emerge from the primeval sea. Indeed, if we stretch the term to its very uttermost and make music include all acoustic expressions, the wind, rain, thunder, sea, are the oldest of all musicians, for trees and brooks came later after the land appeared.

If we abandon ourselves to the very madness of mysticism, we may say that vibrations and impacts are as old as matter, heat, light, or even atoms and electrons. Probably all energy is rhythmic and cadenced, so that in this sense the music of the spheres which Plato thought the sweetest and most

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