The times., 1901-03-17

! evolved the plantation nelOuy- anu itH
| charm lies in it's perfect simplicity ana
naturalness. and its unique difference
from the folk music of the Old World
The only songs of Europe which even re-
motely resemble negro music are some
Of the Highland airs, and there IS not
much resemblance there.
When the missionary schools were es-
tabIished here and there in the South, ana
other schools and colleges followed in
their wake. the first thing that was done
was to train the students out of singing
ANYTHING: they were discouraged from
singing and dancing, and taught to put
their minds on other things. When they
were taught music at all, they were made
TO sing songs totally different from their
own. and the majority of them did 1t
about as badly as the average white sing
er would sing Roll. jordan which is
saying a great deal. Those denominations
of desolation. the Moody and Sankey
Hymnals' have been spread broadcast all
over the South. and the effect is analo-
gous to that of the introduction of the
English sparrow among our native song
sters. The sparrow can neither sing him
self. nor allow any other bird to sing.
Nearly coeval with the gospel hymn came
the popular song. which is generally not
of a high order and out Of the conjunc-
tion of this with the original plantation
melody was born the coon song, which
is not as bad as the gospel hymn, bat
generally bad enough. It's popularity in
duced white music-halI composers to
rite limitations, and then limitations of
the limitations were produced by other
badly demoralfzed as any hybrid thing
can he Here was case, certainly, where
the pure plantation music was far better
than that which has taken its place.
There is no other instance of so fla
grant corruption of musical ideals as
this, because in no other instance has a
race been subjected to just such condi-
tions. The Irish the Germans, the Hun
garians, migrating to this country, have
not been SO segregated as to develop
particular kind of music; in their own
country. though they have been inau-
enccd by commercialism somewhat in
music. as in other things, the pure folk
song has not been lost because there were
alway spIenty of native musicians educat-
ed enough to appreciate and develop it,
and having all the opportunity to do so
which the negro musician lacks through
his poverty and the prejudice which pre-
vents his getting either training or foot
hold.
Another corruption of artistic ideals
among a primitive people has taken place
in the Oriental rug market This case is
analogous to that of the plantation mel
ody though in a totally different field of
art. because in both cases the ideals were
developed among the ignorant, not the
cultivated classes; in both cases they
were mainly religious in origin; in both
cases the people who have the secret of
the art are too poor and too ignorant to
realize how precious a possession it is.
When the tribes of Kurdistan or Asia
Minor forsake the original designs of
their art for a mongrel mixture of colors
and figures without meaning or conti-
uuity. they do not realize that their de-
parture is demoralizing; they understand
only that they have found something
new, and with the childish love of novelty
inherent in human nature they adopt the
new fashion. The aniline dye may rot
the fabric. it may be inartistic, worth
less and adulterated, while the old-fash-
joned dye may be priceless in artistic
value; but unless the rug maker is a
born artist he will do his work as it is
easiest and adopt new method for the
very sake of its newness. 1t is only after
the mischief has been done, after the old
dye makers and designers, loving their
art as Raphael loved his, mixing their
colors as Murillo might, have died and
left no disciples. that the world viii come
TO understand how great treasure OF
traditional and instructive knowledge has
been despoiled because some Western
dive maker was greedy of profit ana
Western buyers ignorant of true beauty.
From the point of view Of art, the mis-
chievousness Of this contact of pseudo
civiIiZa ton with primitive ideals is evi-
dent enough The schools can teach &C
cording to their traditions. but there is
no Occidental dye maker on earth who
knows the secret Of those marvellous
blues, glowing like mid-heaven in June;
those deep, mysterious reds, glinting ike
live Goals, found in some Oriental rugs.
The knowledge of their making rests IN
the turbaned head of some shaggy kurd-
ish chief or cunning Persian workman,
and it is not to be trusted in any book,
only transmitted to some hOnored pupil,
If one can be found worthy. If the pres
ent generation is demoraliZed with ami
line dyes and falsely constructed design,
the old dye makers and designers will
leave no SUCCESSORS. The schools Of Eu-
rope cannot teach "A man to write songs
like the negro melodies of the Old South.
They came of the spontaneous emotion Of
a primitive people, and their simplicity
is their charm Ali the cleverness Of
Worth could no more evolve a peasant
costume than one man can write a Book
of Proverbs. The reason Of all this is
that the untutored genius Of unframed
people is the product of the traditions,
thoughts, emotions, and instincts of
whole race and not of any one individual,
and when the community in which these
things are evolved is broken up and its
environment changed, or when it Is taint-
cd by contact with false and meretriciOus
ideals. the individual cannot rise above
the mass; he must still feel and think
as they do, and his work is affected by
their decentralization
This is why q half-educated people is
almost invariably inartistic. Here and
there an individual. struggling up to a
higher and trucr ideal than those in
which ne has been reared, becomes what
we call a genius, but there must be uni
" of feeling and thought if one would
have spontaneous art and until the indi-
yidual reaches that high level on which