Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-12-18

fact every study embraced in the ordinary school course.
 But more than this. It cultivates, sweetens and refnes mans emo tlonal nature and brings him to Juster appreciation of the true, the beautiful and the good, whether in art or in nature. Nothing has more rotent effect upon the mlnd, temper, behaviour and bodily habits of children than well conducted songs. Music directly develops the moral nature, without which man is but sordid clay; it is a solace In solitude and an ornament and intro ducticn in society.
 Nothing will more effectually re fresh body of fatigued children than the singing of a hearty and beautiful song. Music is the uni versal tongue, and by it's use al the heterogeneous elements in our schools are brought to commoo plane and then moulded into noble citizens.
 Knowledge alone by no means in- sures us high order of citizenship and it is incumbent upon those who control the children--the future cit izens O the Republic-to add to courses of study any branch of learning that will lead to larger and fuller appreciation of the real pleasures of life and higher and nobler ideal of citizenship.
 The distinguished author of
 Music and Morals" speaks thus of the refining influence of ID usic:: The future mission of music for the mi,- lions is the discipline of the emotion. What is the ruin of art? Ill.regu- lated emotion. W hat is the ruin of life? Again, i'll regulated emotion. Wbat mars happiness? What de- stroys manliness? What su'lies womanhood? What checks enter. prise? What spells success? Con stantly the same ill-regulated emo tion. There is cne thing more important than Knowing self: it is to govern self. People get drunk because they have noth- ing else to do; they beat their wives because their minds are narrow, their tastes brutal, their emotions, in a word, ill-reg alated; they spend their wages because they have no self-control; they dawdl. in public houses where money must be speat, simply in the absence of all other resources; and they starve in winter because they have not acquired the habit of steady work, which is i'm possible without study and whole some recreation, or that steady thrift and self-contr which is i'm possible apart from disciplined emotion. The question of music for the people will some day become great government question. There are millions whose only use of emotional life is base, undiscip- lined, and degraded Pleasure with many means crime; restraint, the real handmaid of pleasure, is un- known; system, order, harmony in their feelings, habitf of self control. checking the impulses, moderating and economizing the feelings, guid- ing them to powerful purposes, wise ends and wholesome joys-of all this many are chiefly ignorant; yet | r all this. music would migbtily help to teach and give. f f fl
 When we hear music intelligently aud sympathetically, its obvious that we are actually cnltiyating abstract habits ef mind, which may after ward be transferred as trained forces to the affairs of daily life. As the study of Euclid trains the mind in the abstract, so the study of mus,c trains the emotion in the abstract. If you want to touch and train this emotional life, music is your allspowerful ally"