The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-10-19
III
III.
Democracy vs. Autocracy In Music

Ill.
Democracy VS.. Autocracy In Music
1t is with great satisfaction that we
notice the growth and the widespread
interest of music in the educational
scheme of America in the past few
years. Music seems at last to be
coming into its own Twenty years
ago educators did not seem to even
consider the possibilities that exist IN
school music and a musical education
was looked upon as kind of "side
| line" an accomplishment only for the
favored few.
The birth of the idea of public
school music was in Boston, where
Lowell Mason, realizing the great
need for the development of music in
America began to teach large public
assemblies to sing by note. Mason
was greatly assisted in carrying out
| his ideas by the Academy of Music,
which influenced the school authori-
instruction in singing in the public
schools of that city. So marked was
! the success of this movement that
! music soon received the same consid-
Grafton as other elementary subjects,
with which it is co-equal.
/ The idea of music in the public
school is one of pure democracy, sup,
plying as it does the greatest good to
| the greatest number. It is absolutely
unfair that the moral and mental
istimulus and the beautiful psychic
/ influence resulting from the study of
music be monopolized by the children
Iof the rich. This great educational
force should be available for the
masses and not "cabbined, cribbed
and confined" to the classes.
Without music in the public schools,
America can never be a nation with
musical appreciation and no nation
can claim any degree of culture that
lis incapable of receiving with at least
lsome degree of pleasure and under
standing this most beautiful of all
larts. We will be on the aesthetic
level of the boor who leeringly boast
ed that to him ga chune was a chune,
land he didn't know Yankee Doodle
from Ameriky."
4 The children who receive proper
; musical instruction in the public
school from the primary grades to
graduation from the high school will
Ihave fine powers of discrimination be-
tween the good and the bad in music
and so we build musical appreciation.
| Also during these years they will
Ihave been trained in concentration, in
accuracy, in rhythem, in quickness of
thought and vision and in that subtle
: Iappeal to the higher nature that will
} enrich their entire life.
America has not yet developed
many master musicians, and it is the
opinion of the best psychologists that
there are thousands of children in
America today, who, if but given the
necessary education and opportunity
would become artists. Instead, young
lgenius is often smothered or undis-
lowered by lack of proper facilities
4 for expression We should as loyal
Americans be satisfied no longer with
imported" talent but set about dis
covering and developing the latent
talent in our own American boys and
girls
I In its ambition to get music taught
in the public schools the National
Musical Alliance has received great
encouragement from DIR. P. P. Clax-
ton, commissioner of education, who
: favors along with the singing the use
of instruments and the establishment
of school orchestras.
Ryy tho II i,
public schools, children learn to ap-
lpreciate the beauty in sound and soon
discover that it is vehicle for self
: expression. They also learn to read
the notes and apply them to certain
musical sounds and so choral socie-
ties and church choirs are enriched by
having sight singers. The ear is train
ed and so we have harmonious sing
ing, each part bearing certain rela-
ton and attuned to others. The
deep breathing taught in the .forma-
ton of and sustaining tones promote
better circulation and aeration of the
blood and so singing is an ally to pub
lie health.
We believe the time is here when
the leaders of thought, our writer's
lawmakers and educators are getting
a clearer conception of the fact that
teaching music, along with the other
sciences in the public schools, is an
incalculable and indispensable force
IN the development of that ideal DEM
ocracy toward which they are point
ing US. Marguerite Porter.
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