Widening Horizons for Music Education

Abstract

T HE HORIZONS of music education are being immeasurably widened. We, who are responsible for directing forward movement along an everbroadening front, are faced with unprecedented opportunities. And it must be added, we face, likewise, the fearful obligation to measure up to expectations. Everything seems ready for what music has to give. And we have helped to make it so. We have prepared some of our children and youth to participate in a variety of musical activities of such amazing breadth and excellence that we are now challenged to re-examine our purposes in the light of the musical needs of all of the children and youth of this land. Our young people are ready. The public is ready. This is shown not only by the spiritual temper of the people, but by their growing realization that no nation can rise higher than its masses. Therefore mass education, in the sense of helping all people, young and old, to take part in their own development, is becoming increasingly important. As to the place of music education in this trend, we see on the one hand a major line of action concerned with the contribution of music to the progressive realization of our own social-cultural advancement. On the other hand, we see the part music is capable of playing in inter-cultural relations of world-wide magnitude. Let us begin at home with a backward look. Hopeful rays of light are easily discernible even through the shadows of these bewildering and baffling times. There are evidences that what is commonly called culture has been expanding with gathering force in many and varied directions. ItN this country, as is the case with any vigorous and resourceful people, once the necessities of life are assured, there begins, sooner or later, a search for more adequate means of expressing the manysidedness of life and personality. We do not have to go far to find evidences to prove that numerous ways of satisfying both individual and social aesthetic impulses are being discovered by all kinds of people. Implicit in this movement are widening horizons for music in education. However, musical expression is but one element in the ongoing processes of our cultural growth. We, who wish to make the service of music essential in furthering the progress of democratic ideals, need to see our professional position as it is related to the moving trends and changing factors that are bringing every aspect of each and all of the arts of communication closer to the everyday life of our mass population. Fortunately, there is much to be found that will serve to clarify our own sense of direction.