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Public School Music Forty Years Ago

HE country at large, and I might add, the world at large, is indebted to this *grand old commonwealth for the solution of many educational problems. Not the least in importance was the first introduction of music as a regular branch of study in the public schools of Boston. To this city I came, forty years ago, for information and instruction at the commencement of my public school career. It is true that I visited other cities, but in a majority of cases I was disappointed in witnessing only methods of the poll-parrot order. It affords me pleasure to say that I am still absorbing a large amount of musical inspiration from the original source of supply. Be it understood, then, that I am not here to instruct Massachusetts supervisors how to teach music, but simply, by the courteous invitation of your honorable State secretary, to illustrate some methods and devices which I have found useful.

I have often listened with interest to the experiences of veteran associates in the great work of musical instruction. I have thought that, by way of prelude, it might not be uninteresting to relate a little of my own experience, as it led up to what ultimately became my life work. In my young manhood I conceived a passion for organizing large choruses of children, and drilling them for public entertainments. As I had few competitors in those days, I was fairly successful in this line of work, and achieved reputation as a director of juvenile concerts.

In those days, as at the present time, children were always available for public performances. Parents also in those days, as at the present time, were delighted with the dress and display of their children. The music, of course, was charming-it always is. Public patronage was bountiful, and I must admit that I enjoyed my work immensely. But one day *Paper read at the institute held in Boston, December 10, 1904, under the direction of the State Board of Education for supervisors of music in the public schools of Massachusetts.

there came upon me, as upon Saul of Tarsus, a sudden conviction that I was on the wrong track; that it would be a sinful waste of time and talent to spend my life catering to the amusement of the public at the expense of the rising generation. I then tried to combine theoretical instruction with song practice, but soon found that my classes were less popular than before. I found it difficult to impress parents, much less children, with the fact that outside of school hours anything in the nature of study was legitimate.

As time went on I was impressed more and more, I may say burdened, with the idea that as a science only the study of music could be made successful in the public schools. I was encouraged as I read of music being adopted in the schools of several large cities, and inwardly resolved that I would spare no effort which might bring about its introduction in the New Haven public schools. To that end I labored for several years without success. In my dreams I fancied the time would come when this important step would be taken, and when my own personal ambition to demonstrate results would be gratified. At this point of my experience a crisis in our country's history side-tracked all local enterprises, and I found myself, with other loyal thousands, keeping step to the music of the Union. Victory for the Union cause and for my cherished idea came simultaneously. A petition signed by nearly two hundred leading citizens was presented to the Board of Education, requesting that music be adopted as a regular study in the public schools, and that your speaker be employed as vocal instructor.

On the third day of January, 1865, I entered upon my duties, having in charge the upper rooms of seven schoolhouses, containing about 1,200 pupils. Year by year the number of schools, rooms, and pupils increased, until all were included. I found at once a plentiful lack of apparatus. with which to commencc the work of elementary instruction -no staff-lined blackboards, no graded music books or charts, less than half a dozen pianos of any description, and only a scant supply of books containing hymns for devotional exercises. Most assuredly the outlook was forbidding. The school principals had no particular sympathy with the new branch of study, but were willing that the experiment should

be tried. The regular teachers, also, a majority of whom had little or no knowledge of musical theory, seemed willing that I should succeed, providing success did not involve additional labor for them. The Board of Education simply acquiesced in the proposition, and appointed one of their number to confer with me in reference to the general plan of instruction, the time to be occupied, and other questions.

The plan of most of our schoolhouses at that time was a two-story building, containing six rooms on each floor, with a hall twenty feet wide running the entire length of the building. The gentleman appointed by the Board advised that we proceed with caution, doing nothing to antagonize the views of the teachers or to excite public opposition. He suggested, as a general plan, that during certain hours of certain days the pupils of the six upper rooms, without reference to grade, might file into these long halls and remain standing during the exercises, say fifteen or twenty minutes, while I, as precentor and vocal instructor, occupied one end of the hall.

As you will well understand, this proposition did not accord with my plans for methodical instruction in the science of music. It was only after a vigorous protest that I succeeded in convincing all concerned of the utter absurdity of such a waste of time and energy. It was difficult indeed to convince the authorities that the pupils should remain in their session rooms, and that musical instruction should be governed by the same rules and regulations as obtained in other studies.

In the absence of all musical apparatus, I had a musical chart constructed at my own expense, containing upwards of twelve hundred square feet of canvas. This chart was hung on a portable frame, and reeled off with a crank. With this apparatus, transported from school to school in a wagon, I commenced the work of musical instruction in the New Haven public schools. I soon wore out my musical hurdygurdy; but in the mean time I prepared and published, as I suppose, the first music book in the United States known as a music reader.

At the end of the first year I obtained the privilege of a public rehearsal of school music methods, in what is now

known as the Grand Opera House. The mayor of the city presided; the stage was occupied by the Board of Education, representatives of the press, the clergy, and other prominent citizens; the entire lower floor was filled with delegations from all grades and schools; and the galleries were filled with parents and friends of the children. The program consisted of sight-singing, by classes and individual pupils, from the blackboard, interspersed with rote songs. The impression made was deep and lasting. Voluminous articles in the newspapers commended the results of musical instruction in the schools. I may say that with occasional lapses from that day to the present the general trend of public sentiment has been upward.

If I may be permitted one more reminiscence of those days. One principal and five teachers, who marshalled the children on that memorable occasion, are all that remain in the service. The Hon. Daniel Gilman, president of the Carnegie Institute, Washington, is the only living member of the Board of Education which elected me to my present position. The children who participated in that demonstration are the fathers and mothers of the present generation not only of pupils but of a majority of the teachers; occasionally the children mention their grandmothers in that category-the great-grandmothers are yet to be heard from.

In reference to the work we are all interested in to-day, I may say that, however we may differ in reference to methods used and the amount of technical instruction to be given in the public schools, we must all concede that the one and only criterion of success recognized by the world of music is the ability of school graduates to read the music which they sing. The most artistic rendition of music can never compensate for the lack of this all-important equipment. Moreover, it cannot be doubted that the highest and best incentive to sing music is the ability to read it. I believe I can conscientiously affirm that during my entire period of public service it has been my undivided purpose-and I believe it to be the mission of every supervisor of public school music— not only to contribute to the musical pleasures of childhood, but to so instruct the children that, as they graduate from school life, every pupil may be possessed of a key with which they themselves may unlock the treasures of music.

Surely the time has passed when progress in musical instruction may be measured by the number of songs practised in a given time. Again and again we have been thrilled with delight while listening to memory songs; but, I doubt not you will agree with me, as teachers of the divine art, that the satisfaction realized in listening to a perfect performance in sight-reading is much more enduring.

Opinions vary in reference to the grade in which elementary instruction should begin. If we may judge by a constantly enlarged curriculum in first-grade studies, it seems to be the consensus of public opinion that the bed-rock of all elementary instruction is in the lowest primary grade. My own experience is in perfect accord with that sentiment. If asked when I would commence elementary instruction in music, I should say on the first day of school life. No one doubts the desirability of song practice in the lower grades, especially during the first year, but that does not furnish a sufficient reason for the entire exclusion of notation. I would commence and continue rote singing, as it is commonly called, through the first four grades; but in third and fourth grades I would keep song singing subordinate to the practice in theory.

Former Supervisor of Music,

New Haven, Conn.

B. Jerson.