ning to be placed, we believe, on esthetic and cultural studies, whose function is the enrichment of life. We can hope for comparative permanency in our educational systems only in proportion as our national character acquires repose.

And this is all as it should be. What higher ideal can we set before our educators, than to study the varying needs of a people in course of development, and to endeavor to satisfy them? It is as desirable as it is inevitable, that our systems of education should be plastic, ever re-adjusting themselves with changing conditions-ever forming, but never formed. Implasticity, whether in an individual, in a species, or in a system, is equally incompatible with progress. The early forms in any evolutionary process are, at the same time, the most impressionable.

If our educational systems at large can thus be described as, in a sense, formative, with what word shall we characterize the present status of the study of music-a study so recently developed, in America, that it is, as yet, only in process of articulation with the prevailing forms of educational thought? A recent bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education contains the following statements: "There is no coherence in the general scheme of music education. . . . To define the status of music education in the United States has been practically impossible."

Fortunately, this lack of coherence in music education is no cause for despair, in view of the fervent activity displayed in behalf of the new subject. Approximately one-half of the colleges in the United States, for example, already recognize the value of instruction in music sufficiently to grant credit for it toward the academic degree-the majority of them having adopted this policy within the present decade. In addition, approximately one-sixth of our colleges already allow entrance credit in music, in the academic course-the majority of them having adopted this policy only within the past five years. Many colleges, also, offer instruction in music, tho withholding credit of all kinds. Collegiate activity in music has, in fact, been so widespread, and so effective, that, despite its recent growth, the study has already past thru its

initial stages of development: at first, chief emphasis was placed on the performance of music; then, on the composition of music; and now, on the treatment of music educationally, and as an element of liberal culture. Thus, under the stimulus of a growing ideal, music education has begun to adjust itself to its environment; it has displayed a plasticity that bears eloquent witness to its inherent powers of growth and adaptation.

We come to realize, therefore, that into our still formative American systems of education, ever re-adjusting themselves to the changing needs of a nation at work on a destiny, a new and promising element has entered-a subject of study that, even in its early and ill-formed period, has exhibited so marked a power of adaptation to the needs of its environment, that we are warranted in claiming for it an important function in our educational future.

What, then (to confine ourselves to a restricted field), is the mission of music in American colleges? What are the needs to which it is designed to minister? Our reply must concern itself with the needs of the nation at large, with those of collegiate systems of education, and with those that relate to the future of the art of music itself.

The needs of the nation, to which collegiate instruction in music must respond, are those of the higher life. The period of material development has practically reached its culmination, so that we are now becoming more concerned with the conservation, than with the exploitation, of our natural resources. A new period should be at hand-a period characterized by the increasing refinement of our civilization, by a widespread growth in cultural and esthetic aspects. Mr. Samuel Isham, a specialist in the field of American painting, speaks of " the taking of a whole nation whose ideals had hitherto been purely material, intellectual, or moral, and endowing it with some perception of the beauties of art." It is such a process as this that music is called upon to facilitate. Sordid and mundane influences, commercializing tendencies— these are to be overcome by opposing to them the softening ministries of the esthetic pursuits. "You will find it less easy

to uproot faults," says Ruskin, "than to choke them by gaining virtues."

The needs of collegiate systems of education to which the study of music may be applied, are largely those of incompleteness. President Butler has outlined these five aspects of civilization: the scientific, the literary, the institutional, the esthetic, and the religious. While there is still a question as to the wisdom of including religious teaching in our college curriculums, there can be no question as to the advisability of having instruction along scientific, literary, institutional, and esthetic lines. The last of these, however, is, unfortunately, either unrepresented, or inadequately represented, in most of our colleges and it is this deficiency that the study of music is called upon to assist in meeting. This call is becoming the more insistent, in proportion as the educational value of music is being more widely recognized. For educators are now beginning to realize that the study of an art may contribute as much, even to the general discipline of the mind, as the study of an exact science. The study of music, in its various phases, for example, may lead, not only to the acquisition of better control over the hand, the eye, the ear, the muscular and the nervous systems, but also to the development of intellectual, emotional, volitional, and imaginative powers of a high order.

The salient need of the art of music, which collegiate instruction is seeking to remedy, is the lack of general musical culture in the nation at large-a lack so serious as to imperil our musical future. The development of the art of music in America demands that the colleges provide suitable training, at least in the earlier stages, for the professional student of music, in order that he may not be denied a liberal education during the period of preparation for his profession; but it demands, a fortiori, that the colleges assist in spreading such an intelligent appreciation of the master-works of music as to endow the nation at large with a true musical culture— for only thus can the fertile soil be supplied, in which alone the art can thrive.

A careful study of these national, educational, and artistic

needs will clearly reveal the fact that, if our collegiate instruction in music is to be adjusted to the demands placed upon it, it must be essentially cultural in nature, and designed for the student body at large-rather than technical in nature, and designed only for the elect few. Courses in musical appreciation (this term being employed in its broadest signification) are to be the predominant feature; and the atmosphere is to be jealously guarded, in order that it may always remain esthetic, rather than scientific. Such courses of instruction may, with wisdom, be incorporated in a group of esthetic subjects from which every college student shall be required to elect a policy which, we venture to predict, will characterize the American college of the future.

A question naturally arises regarding the qualifications of the instructor under whose direction such collegiate study of music is to be placed, in any given institution. Just as our educational formulas are determined, in general, by the needs which they are designed to satisfy, so the predominant character of the instruction to be offered and the educational environment to which it must be adapted, indicate that the directing officer in a collegiate department of music should be, in the broad sense of the word, an educator—provided, of course, he be also a musician. If, besides, he is a composer, or even an expert performer, these additional gifts will be of the greatest value: but, preëminently, he must be equipped to penetrate and to solve the insistent problems of an educational nature that beset a subject of study still in its early formative period.

This conclusion, also, is the result of an evolutionary process. In the earlier stages of music instruction in colleges, when the principal emphasis was placed on performance, the collegiate professor of music was, characteristically, an expert performer; later, as emphasis came to be placed on musical composition, the professors chosen were, in most instances, either composers or experts in musical theory; now, when the educational aspects of instruction in music are emerging, the directors of our collegiate departments of music will, naturally, be men particularly qualified to give guidance to the new impulse.

Their problems will be mainly scholastic: the determination of the various courses of study to be offered, their aim and scope, their methods of presentation, and their relative importance; the correlation of music education with the general collegiate curriculum, with instruction in secondary schools, and with the thought and culture of the nation at large; the readjustment of these relationships, from time to time, as educational systems and popular culture progress; the dispelling of the skeptical attitude toward music education, that still lingers in our prevailing educational thought-a survival of the period in which collegiate musicians were unable to command the respect of their associates in other departments; the determination of standards of excellence, and of the principles that are to guide in the awarding of credit and of degrees; the fitting of the instruction to the conditions of undergraduate life and study.

Such problems as these are entirely beyond the ken of even the most talented performer or composer of music, unless he be, at the same time, experienced in the solution of educational questions and familiar with the collegiate field as a whole. It must again be emphasized, however, that the mere educator can not satisfy the demands of the position; the successful director must be, as well, a trained musician, esthetic in temperament, sensitive to the voice of art. With such a man, both educator and musician, music will be an art scientifically taught—not, as is too often the case, a science artfully taught.

In many of our institutions, however, it is necessary that one man direct both the collegiate instruction in music and. a university school, in which selected students pursue special courses designed to fit them for a professional career in music. We are led to inquire, therefore, whether the qualifications of a university director of music are, also, primarily educational. The reply is in the affirmative. All the educational problems in the field of collegiate music have their counterparts in the field of university music; in addition, there are specific questions, such as the determination of the curriculum, and the requirements for higher degrees, which demand solution by a