Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-09-18

,our which added new laurels to her al
ready honcred crown.
During the last 10 years Bangor has
heard the greatest singers that the
world knows today. While the inter-
est in music lasts and retains its press
ent high standard. nothing less than
the best will ever satisfy, and when
ar locality reaches such
a position after 10 long years of striv-
ing it can never be content to lower
its ideals.
Music, poetry. literature, painting,
sculpture and architecture. the me
arts, as they are brought into l'fe py
4 people ale the expression or that
peoples civilization. They mean the
standard of culture and refinement OF
these individuals and communities
which foster and support them. Iher
evolution from Crudity to refinement
throughout all human history mas
marked the path in direct ratio OF peo-
pies rising from savagery and par
ba.ism into civilization.
Where there is little or no clvlllza-
ton there is no expression in art. Inc
painting of the North American indian
was that which he did no his own BODY
i'll preparation for war. HIS music
was the tom tom and the war song be-
fore battle Even his language was
tongue of gutterals. ugly to the ear as
his scalp fringed leggings to the eye.
In all lands and in all times music
has been among the first modes OF ar
tistic expression. From the war songs
of the tribes of Africa it has risen.
gaining instrument after instrument
crude, without form at first. growing
slowly from the monOtonous rhythm
of the war drum, to the reed inStru-
merits of Egypt and of Greece. the tub"
and the lutte of Rome and the trulnp"'
of Charlemagne to the composite deli
cacy of modern musical mechanlsIns,
which represent the ages in their max
| ing and in their use.
Each land has it's own music as each
land has it's own tongue. but in Ameri-
ca perhaps may be found the highest
| appreciation and use of all that has
| gone before to make up national
| ideal, so composite and complex that
it could never have been attained by
any other country for America itself
is composite and unique among the
nations of the world.
And this is the music that the people
of Eastern Maine hear year by year
at their fall festival and glory in. The
same things that please the highest
civilization and refinement Of old Eu-
rome where musical education is part
of the development of every youth
please people here. and Maine men and
women should be proud that they have
been able to rise in the scale so high
THAT they are able to enjoy and glor!
in such music.
| AS from civilization comes culture
land from expression of fine arts Sc
from expression civilization comes, each
Iaiding the other. And so it is good fol
La state to foster an institution which
does so much for the benefit and bet
terment of it's people. In any town il
Maine where q chorus has been estab-
Iished the change in the thoughts ana
habits of it's people may be noted, no
in one year perhaps or two, but in the
course of decade there can be NJ
community which has lain insensible
to tic beauty of it's awakening il
| music.
That is what the Maine festival mean:
} and that is reason why it should re
ceive the cordial support Of all, rich an'
1
dividual or group of individuals. but tt
the entire community. which has made
lit what it is. 1t is the spirit of all
the singers and the audiences which
| make it a success year by year-thc ap
probation of the beauty of swee
: sounds, wonderfully wrought in the
minds Of men and produced by people
whose minds and hearts are in theil
work. so that in the face of trials ant
| discouragements their work is onl!
, their pleasure.
The festival has become in its II
years Of life a public institution. de-
pending on the public for support. ant
at last the public has seen the goodness
Of it and the good it is doing in The
raising up of civic ideals and has
claimed it as it's own to be preserved
at any cost for all time.