The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-09
IN HOTEL LOBBIES.
Music In Public Schools.

Hbboiba III EbDfiC 0CHO0iSs
 Every musician knows that if this coun- try is to have a real musical atmosphere there must be systematic musical in- struction in the public schools, as is the case in Germany and other European na- tions. Fully 95 per cent of the children In the United States have an ear for music and with musical art correctly taught in the schools it will be only a question of time when the great majority of people will read and appreciate works by master composers.
 In the public schools of the north music Is taught, but in the south very little has been done in this line. Birmingham IS one of the few cities where music Is part of the curriculum. Every child in the public schools here is required to study music and to learn to sing by note. This is being insisted on by Superinten- dent J. II. Phillips for the same reason that he insists on picture study and other aesthetic features in connection with or dinary school work. The fine arts have of course, a wonderfully elevating effect, and no one of the arts tend more to broaden the spiritual horizon than music.
 Miss Kitts is in charge of the depart ment of music in the public schools. and Benjamin Guckenberger, the festival di- rector, always spoke In praise of her work. In the first festival MT. Gucken- berger had a good opportunity to test the musical knowledge of the pupils, as he directed a chorus of 200 chidred recruited chiefly from the public schools. When he nj obo od r,ty- prise and delight at the musicianly way in which the juveniles read and sang.
 And now a cultured visitor, Rienzi Thomas, of Montgomery organist and choirmaster of St. Johns Episcopal church, who studied piano and theory in Stuttgart and organ under the famous Dr. Best In England, testlhes to the ex- cellent musical results which he found here yesterday MT. Thomas came to Birmingham Wednesday and will return home this morning. He visited the High school, the Powell school and the Henley school yesterday morning. and this is what he said last night:
 "I was exceedingly interested in the music at the schools. heard the chorus at the High school sing a large concert piece and a beautiful anthem. It was real music--music with color In it-and was impressed at once with the correct ness of the method by which the pupils had been taught. Not only did the sing CTS read correctly phrase artistically and reveal a general knowledge of music, but their intouat.or was singularly true. Miss Kits, the musical director, mas proved herself to be the right person for the position she holds.
 "I have visited many schools in the north, but never heard music in any of them that came up to the music heard today.
 Tn the Powell and Henley schools, where I listened to the younger children, thorough methods were in evidence Here, as all musicians know, is the ground work, and if the method used in these lower grades was faulty the High school chorus could not have sung as it did. The little girls and boys read their exercises at sight. They went through the chromatic scale and came out all right on the pitch. It was indeed re- markable I catechised the children on the history of music and found they knew a good deal about that, too. They could tell about composers. when they lived and name their important works. am told that in every one of the schools the same admirable results are remarked.
 This musical feature of the public schools is far reaching for good and Bir- minghams example should be followed in all the public schools in the south