Chapter X: Musical Education in America (2)

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] It is reproduced in 'The Musician,' Vol. X, p. 484.

[57] This society must not be confounded with one of the same name founded in 1858 at St. Louis by Edward Sobolewsky, the opera composer, for the purpose of producing the best choruses.

[58] During the Civil War Root was a missionary of patriotism as well as of music, his 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching' and 'The Battle-cry of Freedom' contributing greatly to the martial spirit of the North. _Cf._ Chap. XI.

[59] Members of the so-called 'reform' administration of Mayor William J. Gaynor, which came into power January 1, 1910.