Music in Our Public Schools

Abstract

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—After accepting the very flattering invitation to read a paper before your Society, on the subject of Music in our Public Schools, and upon sitting down to consider the matter, I was brought suddenly face to face with the disconcerting fact that I knew little or nothing about it. The history of music in public schools only dates back some twenty years, and during that time I have been so busy minding my own affairs at Sherborne, that I have had few opportunities of inquiring into other people's business. I have, to be sure, heard concerts at Cheltenham, Marlborough, and Harrow, but nowhere else, and this limited knowledge would certainly not qualify me to speak as an authority. For though I have heard it fabled that people do at times lecture upon subjects they are unacquainted with, I am far too timid to embark upon such an adventure before this audience. I propose, therefore, to effect a compromise, and to tell you my experience of music in a public school—namely, Sherborne. I shall, at any rate, be on safe ground, as I spent nineteen years of my life there, during the greater part of which I was responsible for whatever music was studied or performed. I must crave your indulgence beforehand if the little word “I” creeps with too great persistency into my discourse. This paper must necessarily be a fragment of musical autobiography, and the humblest autobiography must necessarily be, like a peacock's tail, all I's. On the other hand, the autobiography of the obscurest individual may teach, at any rate the younger among you, a lesson worth knowing. My paper will, therefore, not be the usual learned and luminous discourse which you are accustomed to listen to, and I can only hope it may serve as a document for some much more authoritative historian and theorist to elaborate on some future occasion.