The Why and Wherefore of the Junior High School

Abstract

The organization of High Schools everywhere is the biggest movement ever made toward solving the many difficulties, which have heretofore faced us in the upper grades. A rather recent publication Junior High School Education by Davis, thoroughly sets forth the historical setting of this department in our educational field. How are we, as directors of music, to suit our music curriculum to these comparitively new conditions? Many cities have already solved these problems, Kansas City among them, and I for one look forward with great interest to March 30th-April 3rd, for further ideas and assitance from that source of inspiration. Music, as a means of self-expression an outlet for energetic, emotional youth is one of the necessities in the High School. The gang spirit which is so uppermost at this age accounts for the united feeling of music. instructors in the assembling of groups of classes in the auditorium at least once a week that they may sing from the heart. Much of the assembly period should be devoted to what we commonly call community singing, with some time devoted to program numbers furnished from the compositions rehearsed in their class rooms, by orchestras, emsemble groups and glee clubs. Need of the Course If there has been no time devoted to music other than those periods previously stated it may take considerabable pressure and urgent appeal to find time in the busy class schedule of the day for recitations devoted to those studentswho are studying some branch of applied music and very much need assistance in theory fundamentals beside the desirable electives interpretation, history and appreciation. Young people should know that there are such men as Beethoven, Elgar, Tschaikowsky and Grieg and others of the many outstanding figures in the worlds musical literature (if it may be so termed) just as truly as they should know the literary geniuses-the novelist, the essayists and the poet. It is a part of their heritage to which they have a right. The mass of music educators must feel the seriousness of their calling sufficiently before they can make the heads of our school systems recognize it as it deserves to be recognized. Will Earhart of Pittsburg says that the adolescent youth has characteristics that make him an infant adult rather than an adult infant and that this fact must determine the nature of the new courses which we are forming for our High Schools. All who are endeavoring to formulate courses in music for High Schools seems to be unamious in feeling that it affords the richest possibilities of any point in the entire school system. Making a Beginning Some of us are called upon in this 67