The 'Handel Society of Dartmouth College,' discussed in another connection, had a fate unworthy of its high character and sadly significant of the low state of musical appreciation in the smaller colleges of the times, and in the 'common people' from which class their students were chiefly drawn. It dwindled and died for lack of recruits. Pity it is that some loyal patron of the college had not provided for the perpetuation of the society, if only as a memorial of Dartmouth's chief glory, even surpassing that of having trained in some measure the classic rhetoric and Olympian accents of the greatest of American orators. Our democracy alone, unaided by college culture, produced Lincoln, in most minds the rival of Webster in perfect phrase and his superior in heart-moving utterance, if not in ear-entrancing tone. It has not yet brought forth the compeers of these in music, since education is required to supply the nurturing musical environment found abroad but hitherto lacking in American life. Had music been permanently established as a part of the curriculum of Dartmouth alone, not to speak of the other colleges, a few young men with a native taste for it would undoubtedly have been found in every class and these would have cherished and transmitted the sacred fire with increasing ardor until the inevitable time arrived when native genius would be kindled into immortal flame.
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.