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VI. EDUCATIONAL LABORS OF LOWELL MASON.

LOWELL MASON, who is identified with the advancement of musical education in this country, was born in Medfield, Mass., January 8th, 1792. He early manifested a great love for music, and sung, and played on various instruments, almost instinctively. In early youth, he commenced teaching; for which, also, he manifested a strong inclination.

At the age of twenty, he removed from Massachusetts to Savannah, Georgia, where, although engaged in other occupations, the teaching of music, and the conducting of choirs and musical associations, both vocal and instrumental, were leading objects of his attention. During his residence in Savannah, he became deeply interested in Sabbath School teaching, and was, for many years, the superintendent of a large school, the only one at that time, in the city; and in which all the different Christian denominations united. It was while engaged in this school, that he formed those habits of intercourse with children, which afterward proved so valuable, when teaching became the daily occupation of his life, in the wide sphere of musical instruction in our public schools.

In 1821, the Boston Handel and Haydn Collection of Church Music, of which Dr. Mason was the sole editor, was first published; and, a few years afterward, several gentlemen of Boston, who had been, for some time, engaged in efforts to introduce improvements in church music, some of whom had become personally acquainted with Dr. Mason, and with the successful results of his musical labors, took measures to obtain his aid and direction in the execution of their plans. Proposals were accordingly made to him to remove to Boston, which were finally accepted; and in the summer of 1827, he took up his residence in that city.

Dr. Mason now commenced the extensive teaching of vocal music in classes, introducing, at once, that feature in musical teaching, which had been but little known before, but which he had successfully pursued in Savannah, the instruction of children; training their voices especially to the performance of the alto part in choral music. These efforts were highly successful: they resulted in the awakening of a

very general interest in musical instruction, and in preparing the way for the formation of the Boston Academy of Music, and for the introduction of music into schools, as an educational study.

Dr. Mason had already established a reputation as a successful teacher, both of vocal and instrumental music, in which he had now been engaged for sixteen or eighteen years, when an event occurred, which not only changed his whole manner of teaching, but which led him to a much wider and more comprehensive view of the subject of musical instruction, than he had before entertained, and to juster conceptions of the whole theory of education, as resting on a rational and philosophical basis. We refer to the fact that he had now become acquainted, for the first time, with the principles of instruction, as developed by Pestalozzi, which, although at first with great reluctance, he at length thoroughly embraced, and has, for nearly thirty years, constantly and faithfully adhered to, and happily and successfully illustrated.

For this clearer light on the subject of education, Dr. Mason was indebted to the enlightened zeal, energy, and perseverance, in all educational improvements, of the late William C. Woodbridge, so extensively known, not only as a geographer but as an educator, whose labors, in both capacities, mark one of the prominent eras of the history of education in the United States. Mr. Woodbridge, while in Germany and Switzerland, where he resided for several years, with the view of becoming acquainted with the best methods of instruction, although like Pestalozzi, he had given little personal attention to the subject of music, became, from his own observation of its excellent influence on the pupils of Pestalozzian schools in general, and especially in the institution of Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, thoroughly convinced of its importance as a school exercise and an educational influence. He accordingly procured all the information in his power respecting it, and obtained the most approved text-books of school or elass voice-exercises and songs, as well as of elementary treatises on musical instruction. Among these were the admirable songs of Nägeli, and the treatise by M. T. Pfeiffer and H. G. Nägeli, published at Leipzig, 1810, entitled "Gesangbildungslehre nach Pestalozzischen Grundsätzen." These books by Nägeli and others, which had been prepared with particular reference to the legitimate influence of song in moral culture and the training of the affections, Mr. Woodbridge not only placed in the hands of Dr. Mason, but was at the trouble, himself, to translate them, in part, and to furnish such explanations and directions as he had received personally from Pfeiffer, Nägeli, Krüsi, Fellenberg, Kübler, Gersbach, and others.

To those who know, from their own experience, how difficult it is