Dwight gave a most generous welcome to all young musicians of promise as they came forward. Such men as John C.D. Parker, John K. Paine, Benjamin J. Lang, George W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, and William F. Apthorp were generously aided by him; and the Journal of Music never failed to speak an appreciative word for them. However Dwight might differ from some of them, he could recognize their true merits, and did not fail to make them known to the public. When Mr. Paine, who had been watched by Dwight with appreciation and approval from the beginning of his musical career, was made a professor of music in Harvard University, when his important musical compositions were published, and when his works were given fit interpretation in Cambridge and elsewhere, these events were welcomed by him as true indications of the development of music in this country.
For many years John S. Dwight was the musical autocrat of Boston, and what he approved was accepted as the best which could be obtained. His knowledge of music was literary rather than technical, appreciative rather than scientific; but his qualifications were such as to make him an admirable interpreter of music to the cultivated public of Boston. What a musical composition ought to mean to an intelligent person he could make known in language of a fine literary texture, and with a rare spiritual insight he voiced its poetic and aesthetic values. If the better-trained musicians of more recent years look upon his musical judgments with somewhat of disapproval, as not being sufficiently technical, they ought not to forget that he prepared the way for them as no one else could have done it, and that he had a fine skill in bringing educated persons to a just appreciation of what music is as an art. As Mr. William F. Apthorp has well said, "his musical instincts and perceptions were, in a certain high respect, of the finest. He was irresistibly drawn towards what is pure, noble, and beautiful, and felt these things with infinite keenness."
Dwight's last years were spent in furthering the interests of the Harvard Musical Association, in writing about his beloved art, and in the society of his many generous friends. He had a talent for friendship, and during his lifetime he was intimately associated with almost every man and woman of note in Boston. He was of a quiet, gentlemanly habit of life, took the world in the way of one who appreciates it and desires to secure from it the most of good, was warmly attached to the children of his friends and found the keenest delight in their presence, loved all that is graceful and beautiful, and devoted himself with unceasing ardor to the art for which he did so much to secure a just appreciation.
On the occasion of his eightieth birthday his friends and admirers were brought together in the rooms of the Harvard Musical Association. It was a red-letter day in his life, and he greatly appreciated it. A few months later, September 5, 1893, his life came to an end—a life that had been in no way great, but that had been spent in the loving and faithful service of his fellow-men. At his funeral, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, an intimate friend of many years, read this just and appreciative tribute:
"O Presence reverend and rare,
Art thou from earth withdrawn?
Thou passest as the sunshine flits
To light another dawn.
Surely among the symphonies
That praise the Ever-blest,
Some strophe of surpassing peace
Inviteth thee to rest.
Thine was the treasure of a life
Heart ripened from within,
Whose many lustres perfected
What youth did well begin.
The noble champions of thy day
Were thy companions meet,
In the great harvest of our race,
Bound with its priceless wheat.
Thy voice its silver cadence leaves
In truth's resistless court,
Whereof thy faithful services
Her heralds make report.
Here thou, a watchful sentinel,
Didst guard the gates of song,
That no unworthy note should pass
To do her temple wrong.