Sir Charles thought it proper, feasible, desirable, and patriotic.
The Doctor, thus seconded, drew up a plan for forming a Musical Conservatorio in the metropolis of England, and in the bosom of the Foundling Hospital.
The intention was to collect from the whole little corps all who had musical ears, or tuneful voices, to be brought up scientifically, as instrumental or vocal performers.
Those of the group who gave no decided promise of such qualifications, were to go on with their ordinary education, and to abide by its ordinary result, according to the original regulations of the charity.
A meeting of the governors and directors was convened by their chief, Sir Charles Whitworth, for announcing this scheme.
The plan was heard with general approbation; but the discussions to which it gave rise were discursive and perplexing.
It was objected, that music was an art of luxury, by no means requisite to life, or accessary to morality.
These children were all meant to be educated as plain, but essential members of the general community. They were to be trained up to useful purposes, with a singleness that would ward off all ambition for what was higher; and teach them to repay the benefit of their support by cheerful labour. To stimulate them to superior views might mar the religious object of the charity; which was to nullify rather than extinguish, all disposition to pride, vice, or voluptuousness; such as, probably, had demoralized their culpable parents, and thrown these deserted outcasts upon the mercy of the Foundling Hospital.
This representation, the Doctor acknowledged, would be unanswerable, if it were decided to be right, and if it were judged to be possible, wholly to extirpate the art of music in the British empire: or, if the Foundling Hospital were to be considered as a seminary; predestined to menial servitude; and as the only institution of the country where the members were to form a caste, from whose rules and plodden ways no genius could ever emerge.
But such a fiat could never be issued by John Bull; nor so flat a stamp be struck upon any portion of his countrymen. John Bull was at once too liberal and too proud, to seek to adopt the tame ordinances of the immutable Hindoos; with whom ages pass unmarked; generations unchanged; the poor never richer; the simple never wiser; and with whom, family by family, and trade by trade, begin, continue, and terminate, their monotonous existence, by the same pre-determined course, and to the same invariable destiny.