In May, 1848, another musical convention was held in Chicago, which discussed the general question of musical education and the specific one of music in the public schools. Four years later William B. Bradbury led a similar but larger convention. At this convention the 'Alpine Glee Singer,' a compilation by Bradbury, was used for secular music, indicating the strong influence which the elementary sentimentality of German popular music exerted upon Americans. Sugared American psalmody, flavored with German sentimentality, and colored with a crudity of technique almost aboriginal produced that sort of musical candy which we know as the Sunday-school song. Bradbury was a pioneer in the composition and publication of such music, although, to do him justice, the especially deleterious coloring of the mixture was added by his successors, among whom Ira D. Sankey and P. P. Bliss may be mentioned as chief offenders. The collections of this school of musical composers must be reckoned by thousands in editions and millions in numbers of copies. Bradbury alone compiled more than fifty singing books, containing many of his own compositions. Of these collections 'The Jubilee,' published in 1857, sold 200,000 copies; 'Fresh Laurels' (1867), 1,200,000 copies; and a series known as the 'Golden Series,' 2,000,000 copies.
This flood of sentimentality, completely inundating the Sunday-school, poured into the public school, and almost swamped the ark of juvenile education in music which careful hands had just committed to that great stream of popular culture. When music became recognized as an essential element of education, it was inevitable that the only available juvenile songs, those of the Sunday-school, should be introduced in the public schools. Indeed, the singing of anything in the schools was preferable to the entire absence of song, and so this order of music, representing, as it did, the popular taste of the time, marks, although we are loath to say it, an important step forward.
Dr. Lowell Mason was the chief assistant at an event which marks an epoch in American musical education, namely, the birth of the normal musical institute from the so-called musical convention. This occurred in 1856 at North Reading, Mass., where an annual musical convention of the usual sort was converted into a school of a fortnight's duration for instructing its members, particularly teachers, in both musical theory and practice. The example was followed all over the country to the great benefit of musical pedagogy. Associated with Dr. Mason in this work of popularizing music was George F. Root, who journeyed over the country conducting conventions, lecturing, etc.[58]
V
During the second half of the nineteenth century the teaching of music passed in large measure from the hands of single, independent teachers into the direction of music masters associated in institutions for class instruction, which are generally known as conservatories, although this term in its European signification of a large, completely equipped and nationally endowed school of music is misleading. Indeed, the pretense seems to have been deliberate. Dr. Frank Damrosch, in an address on 'The American Conservatory,' before the Music Teachers' National Association at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1906, said:
'The so-called conservatory, college, or university of music ... may be found in every American community.... It is usually organized by an individual whose commercial instincts are stronger than his musical conscience, and who, banking on the dense ignorance of the average citizen in matters of art, offers what seems to be a great bargain in the acquisition of musical ability in one form or another.... There are many such schools which seemingly flourish by the glittering, if empty, promises which they advertise. Some of them confer degrees; ... one of the first musical doctor degrees conferred by the director of one of these schools was on himself!'
While there are hundreds of conservatories of the class described by Dr. Damrosch scattered over the Union, a number of institutions are to be found which rank in thoroughness and comprehensiveness of instruction with the best European conservatories. These have been in every instance of slow growth, the most pretentious in chartered plans having made early and signal failures in the province of musical education, though some of them won success in other musical activities. A typical example of this order is the Academy of Music of New York, whose career is recorded in Chapter VI.
The earliest American conservatory worthy of its name is the Conservatory of Music of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, which was founded in 1857. Its chief contribution to American musical education has been the Peabody concerts, a series of eight performances having been given annually since 1865. From 1872 to 1898 Asger Hamerick, the Danish composer, was director. He organized an orchestra of fifty performers, which became, under his intelligent training, a highly efficient instrument for the rendition of the most advanced music. The programs of his concerts were formed of overtures, symphonies, concertos, suites, and vocal solos. He gave especial attention to works by American, English, and Scandinavian composers, performing for the first time in America many notable compositions, among them a number of his own. The good work of the Peabody concerts, attracting, as it has done, the respectful attention of foreign masters, should be a matter both of encouragement and pride to those who have the cause of American music at heart. It points the way to high attainment in our musical appreciation and notable achievement in native composition.
The year of 1867 is notable in American musical history for the establishment of five leading conservatories or musical colleges: the New England Conservatory in Boston; the Boston Conservatory; the Cincinnati Conservatory; the Oberlin Conservatory; and the Chicago Academy of Music, later known as the Chicago Musical College.
The New England Conservatory was founded by Eben Tourjée, whom Sir George Grove, in his 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' denominates the 'father of the conservatory or class system of instruction in America.' The nature of this system and its advantages have been well expressed by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who said: 'The class system has the advantage over the private instruction of the individual in that, by the participation of several in the same lessons and studies, a true feeling is awakened; and in that it promotes industry, spurs to emulation, and is a preservative from one-sidedness of education and taste.'