III
A new order of native-born music teachers, those who pursued European methods in their instruction, was now arising. The chief of this class was Lowell Mason. Mason was born at Medfield, Mass., and spent his youth and early manhood in Savannah, Ga., where he was engaged in business. A music-lover from early childhood, he carried to the South the psalmody of New England, but, becoming master of a church choir, he felt the inadequacy of existing collections of church music and, with the valuable assistance of a local music teacher, Mr. Abel, prepared a new one suited to his needs.
He came to Boston seeking a publisher and found it in the Handel and Haydn Society, which, in 1822, not only published the collection but gave the society's name to it. It met with great success, running through many editions. In 1826 its compiler delivered a series of lectures in Boston churches on church music which attracted such favorable attention that he was induced to make his home in the city. In time he became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, and, when the Boston Academy of Music was established, largely through his efforts, he was put in charge of it.
At this period began a movement to reform radically our entire system of school instruction, and the moment was propitious for the introduction of music in the public schools, a purpose upon which Mr. Mason had set his heart. In 1830 William C. Woodbridge delivered before the American Institute of Instruction in Boston an address on 'Vocal Music as a Branch of Common Education,' illustrated by Mason's pupils, in which the lecturer, recently returned from Europe, warmly advocated the cultivation of music as an essential element of American, as it was of foreign life. One sentence of his lecture is startling to us of the present generation in its inferential revelation of the primitive nature of juvenile instruction in the United States as late as 1830. Mr. Woodbridge, speaking of music being 'the property of the people' in Germany and Switzerland, heard in field and factory, and in gatherings for pleasure no less than in assemblies for worship, added: 'But we were touched to the heart when we heard its cheering animating strains issuing from the walls of a schoolroom.'
Mr. Woodbridge was an enthusiast over the Pestalozzian method as applied to instruction in music. He not only collected all the literature he could on the subject, but even translated the more important works and turned over the entire material to Mr. Mason. This wise teacher experimented first with the method before adopting it. The success of the trial made him an ardent supporter of the new system of instruction, which completely overthrew the old custom of starting the pupil off with a complete tune and correcting defects as these manifested themselves. The Pestalozzian method is truly the natural one, building up, instead of patching up. This will be seen by examining its principles:
1. To teach sounds before signs (have the pupil learn notes orally first).
2. To lead the pupil to observe and execute differences in sound, instead of explaining these to him, i. e., to make him active instead of passive in learning.
3. To teach one thing at a time—rhythm, melody, expression—instead of a selection embodying all these elements.
4. To have the pupil master each step by practice before passing to the next.
5. To explain principles after practice (the inductive method).
6. Analysis and practice of articulation of speech in order to use it in song.
To apply this revolutionary method to teaching music was the central purpose of the establishment of the Boston Academy of Music. It had a useful career during the fourteen years of its existence. Mr. Mason, like Mr. Adgate, of Philadelphia, believed in 'music for the people,' and his generosity in extending this without considering material profit kept the institution in constant need of funds until it gave up the struggle and closed its doors in 1847.
The Academy was more than a New England institution: it was a national one, in that music teachers in every part of the country wrote to it for guidance in their work. And it left behind it the finest of mmorials, the establishment in Boston, and, through Boston's example, all over the nation, of music in the public schools, not merely as a relief from other studies, but as a study itself. This innovation was made by the city fathers of Boston in 1837, after a trial of the propositions had proved successful. T. Kemper Davis, chairman of the school committee, made a long and learned report upon the subject which is a classic of its kind, and as such may be read with profit by teachers of music, particularly those in the public schools.[56]
Music in the public schools of New York had an independent origin. In 1835 Darius E. Jones experimented with the idea of forming singing classes in the schools and teaching them without compensation. The trial was successful, and the school board gave him permission to continue the work provided no expense was incurred and regular studies were not interfered with. Music in the New York schools was not effectively recognized by provision for compensation until 1853. T. B. Mason, the brother of Lowell Mason, introduced singing in the public schools of Cincinnati. Pittsburgh began such instruction in 1840. Nathaniel D. Gould, a music teacher and composer, claimed to have been the first to teach singing to children in a systematic method. From 1820 onward he organized such classes in New England, New York, and New Jersey.
The recognition by municipal authority of music as an essential element of education has been ratified in the fullest manner by national authority. Philander P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, addressing the National Education Association convened at St. Paul, in July, 1914, asserted that music is of more practical value than any subject of the usual curriculum, except reading and writing, and with these studies, and physical culture and arithmetic, forms the fundamentals in elementary education.
While in the later thirties colleges and universities were not prepared to grant music a place in the academic curriculum, they began to recognize it as an important element of culture, and to extend to it their patronage. In 1838 William Robyn, a professor in St. Louis University, formed, under the auspices of the institution, a musical society called the 'Philharmonic' for the performance of public concerts. These were well patronized.[57]