The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-04-17
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i lilPeidliNe III our WOfk.
 Music penetratss everywhere. be it a religious, political social or educational function. II Is the beautifying and i'm 1 pressive part of our church service; it l is essential to the Kindergarten work using it to weave in the child's mind the suggestions that forn his habits and which go to build his character stronger By it's agency idle thoughts, evil thoughts arS supplanted: cells that con tain no thought are made receptive, and the subsoil of the mind made ready. It intensifes the episode of our Iightest or heaviest drama; it enhances the beauty Of literary production; it belongs to every phase of life, and because of the directness and universality of it's appeal it has it's pre-eminence lover all other arts.
 Music is not an art to one who simply regards 1t a matter of wonder. To the majority of people music is looked upon as diversion from a severe mental strain-the study of Latin or mathemat- ics-and doesn't suggest a development of gray matter or value as an intellectual training It is a recreation from several viewpoints, but can we read a history or growth more instructive?
 There is no branch of study that re- qrires such strict attention to detail, such a alert and accurate observation, or greater concentration of mind; and with these three clements can it be lack ing in it's moral and ethical side?
 There are but seven notes in a. scale make them fourteen" says Newman. Yet what a slender outfit for so vast an en- terprisel What science brings so much out of so little? Can it be that these mysterious strings of the heart and keen emotions and strange yearnings after We know not what are insubstantiel and come and go and begin and end in them selves? It is not so; it cannot be. They have escaped from some higher sphere something are they which we cannot com pass.'
 To appreciate any science-and music is both science and art-requires some training, and no doub. the cultivated ear will more and more appreciate the beau ties of music, but it doesn't involve an unusual outlay of time to learn to listen inteligently. Lest We who are most in terested in this particular branch see it and the whole world encompassed in the girllet hole of music. let us look in per speetive with music as a vanishing point seeing soul and spirit trained while the mind and hands are being drilled and made skillful in the various other de- partments of life.
 It is not my purport to make any thing other than a good, interested lis tener one who can depict through music a mental picture, at the same time asso- ciating this with melody that is a mel ody and not confusion of sounds.
 To an uncultivated or unskilled eye daubing of bright colors on a cloth to depict a mountain scene gives just as much genuine pleasure as a picture from the brush of Millst or Corot; so a tumble of musical sounds with certain rhythm givea pleasure to an untrained ear.
 A little digression to the technical side of this may let you have glimpse or how balance of power is gained as re- gards this suggestion Of musical Work in the high school
 Young peoples minds are 80 impress sionable or plastic that with interest aroused they surpSss the requirements. When mental picture is formed or piece of music it is not long before pupil grasps the swing and Tilt of the movement and with enthusiasm will lm- agine all of it's pictures and listen to the most classical number with musical de- light
 The first thing of importance that comes to me is how to use the material in hand in the length of time allotted. By begin ming the work at the time of minstrel singers of Italy, the troureres and trou- badours of France and mime singers and meistersingers of Germany, interest IS at once manifest because of their knowl- edge already of these learned in English work Out of this evolves the opera work with the interesting growth of the orchestra-the most wonderful of ''mu- sical instruments"
 The selection of material to illustrate opera work is a problem at hrst, since the compositions of Wagner Chuck and later composers are the only ayana pie material for illustration, until we arrive at the romantic movement with Won we tkaU Ura writers with Schubert's and Schuman names standing in bold relief.
 To represent the composers properly and teach synonym for each name, a skin from country to country Will De necessary. and the time will extend rom Monteverde in Italy to Wagner In Ger | many. with Piccin and Gluck with hls dramatic clement and CarriSsne and l Handel who speaks through his choruses | intervening.
 Tn hte arrangement of instrumental work we begin with the old dance forms, | the ballet rondo and minuet, and trace l by analysis of piano forms, using an al 1 legro or andante movement of a sonata I or symphony, and crudely work out each theme until it is recognizable when play I ed in ensemble.
 This working out by formula is not al- ways received with outbursts of enthu- 
 ment would not be musically impressed, h,1r if is the only means to the desired end.
 Previous to the visit of Damrosch last year Beethoven's fifth sympony, the Per Gynt Suite" the 'Tannhauser" | oy erture and others were taught in this manner. and I dare say every pupil in the class listened to 1t in detail, while I know that without the analysH and | interpretation it would have meant noth- ing more than melee of sound from string, woodwind and percussion instru- ments, conducted by a noted man. | A succession of such works will form the habit of ably listening, even If the melody is not familiar one.
 Thus a preparation is given to stim- ulate a desire to understand and pursue the study In acquiring this knowledge one learns not only the characteristics l of the life of the composer but the l condition of affairs at the time of his writing.
 l find that music is an organizer. that it gives a better apprehension of the. in- l ward beauties and graces of the art by enlareing the boundaries of the mind; it enables us to feel the influence of things unsaid: 1t helps a pupil to find himself and be able to see his latent capacities in an ideal way. by being lifted to a realm which inspires and disciplines and makes more reasonable and gentler that l part of our being we call soul; and 1 when we do this can we not say that when
 Gods in His heaven
 AIS right with the world? I SWAMI ABHEDANANDA
 Ar event which is anticipated with ex- h u t.-<