very forcibly to me that, as we are responsible to every member of the great chorus of fifteen millions, it falls to us to engage ourselves actively in this reform. Some delightful results will follow:

1. Supervision will extend to places that do not now enjoy it.

2. Supervision as a whole will become more even, and better music work will be done in the normal schools.

3. The young man and young woman who desire to specialize school music will pass from adequate normal-school training to adequate special training.

4. The grade teacher will come from the normal school better equipped for the daily music lesson.

5. The supervisor will have a chance to draw his salary for doing his own work, instead of throwing himself away in little tasks.

This sets him where he belongs. Here and there, as you know, the belief obtains that the moment the grade teacher can conduct the daily music lesson well the supervisor must go (he ought to go, if that is the kind of supervisor he is); otherwise he will remain and attend to the higher qualities of his profession, bringing forth a result in school music that the world now knows not of.

The intel

I have always maintained that an excellent music supervisor, at a generous salary, is the best investment a community can make. No mayor, alderman, or overseer of the poor can compare with him. lectual and spiritual contribution which it lies in his power to make to his community are beyond the terms of my stating. He ministers to everyone about him thru a beautiful art. Certainly one who does that is not lightly to be thought of. You recall the office of town musician in the old German principalities. His modern prototype is not the leader of the village brass band. It is the music supervisor. He is an amusing anomaly. Ordinarily the community that hires him does not suspect his value, and he usually does not show that he realizes the musical possibili. ties of the community that has invested in him.

I wish he would pre-empt the post and do all it suggests, continuing outside of school the work he does in it. Do not say the town could not afford to pay him. After he has shown the community to itself he may dictate his own terms of surrender. When we actually look to see the course of the country that is becoming musical we are astonished. It is the change in the general mass. The well-known composers, whose names you know as well as I, are not doing as much, after all, to change the mass as that man is whose daily labor is to be a good guide, a sympathetic friend, a careful teacher, a lover of music and of children. He is the man who, every day, leads his section of the great chorus of fifteen millions and inspires it every time. His office is that of the music supervisor.

This, the Department of Music Education of the National Educational Association, has met for a number of years. It is likely to continue to do so. Have you ever noticed that the annual report, tho it weighs several pounds, contains little or no mention of music in its general sessions?

It is deemed sufficient to grace any of its proceedings with a solo (at times on the cornet). How many of you have ever been invited to appear before the general sessions and contribute your quota to the sum total of human knowledge they are piling up in the annual report? Very few have had that honor. But, instead, you are set here apart and advised to love one another. You cannot make any very extensive application of that behest in an audience of this size.

This, I think, is largely your own fault. If the opportunity comes for you to go over the way and give information about music to the elect, be wide-awake and have something ready to give, something that will make college presidents, state superintendents, boards of education, and the like sit up straight and wonder why they had hitherto overlooked you.

I would suggest that the president of this department, with your approval, appoint a committee to determine some facts of prime import

ance:

1. What course of study and acquirement would constitute an adequate knowledge of music for the grade teacher ?

2. What course of study in general education should a student pursue who aims to become a music supervisor?

3. What course should he follow in music?

4. How may schools, public or private, be established in every state where such study may be provided to young men and women?

One might continue these questions to an indefinite number; but in these four there is ample trouble for one administration. If these questions, or a few of them, could be conscientiously investigated by a small committee, willing to work hard and to pay its own postage, I feel sure it would bring back to this meeting next year a report you would listen to with joy and admiration. This work of investigation and formulation should be carried on every year. Then the Department of Music Education would push itself onward; it would in time be the means of establishing school music well and aright; of permitting it to show its value more fully; of bringing things about in such way that grade-teachers' work and the supervisor's work would each fall into place, one supplementing the other; then the music supervisor could draw his salary for doing his own work, instead of for doing a grade-teacher's work.

These questions I have offered you for consideration are, as you know even better than I, but the very beginning of the matter. In like manner this department could investigate systematically and report on the extent of kindergarten, primary, grammar, high, and normal school music. This department could, to its great advantage, institute an inquiry into the music of every state, what towns have it and what have not.

The accomplishments in school-chorus performance should be closely watched. Every significant achievement should be reported here. You would then come to these annual meetings and get something directly. contributing to your own work. Carrying on this inquiry for a time, we

would soon have information worth one hundred cents on the dollar to superintendents, boards of education, and the general sessions of the National Educational Association. Do this and the great chorus of fifteen millions will move us when it sings.

But let us not forget this: Lord Macaulay has pointed out that the annals of history record many battles won by armies commanded by the incompetent general. But in the annals of history there is no record of a single battle having been won by an army commanded by a debating society. The investigation suggested here deserves debate, but that alone will avail nothing without long-continued and enthusiastic labor.

MUSICAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY FOR A TEACHER OF MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

FRANK L. NAGEL, DIRECTOR PIANO DEPARTMENT OF HIGHLAND PARK COLLEGE, DES MOINES, IA.

This subject will be considered from the conditions as they are at present. I say at present, for the reason that these are but the pioneer days of this all-important branch of musical culture in this country. In this pioneer work we are confronted by situations and circumstances that have to be taken into consideration, and that play no small part in the is-ness of things. Music in the public schools is a new thread in the warp and woof of our educational life, and the hands so long confined to the handling of cotton and wool homespun may be found clumsy when this bright gold thread is suddenly thrust into the loom, with the order: "This must be woven into your cloth and appear in your finished goods smooth and harmonious." The average teacher is certainly confronted

with a problem.

We will therefore first consider our topic from the present status of things. We will say how little a teacher should know about vocal music in order to efficiently assist in this pioneering. We will take it for granted that the supervisor is fully equipped for his or her work.

The teachers in the primary grades should be able to read the simple exercises that are used for beginners, and beginners should be the primaries. It is of great importance that the musical education should begin with the tenderest years, for it is easy to impress the soft, pure tablet of thought during the first years of school life with the fundamentals of music as well as the three R's. This sight-reading necessarily implies a knowledge of time and rhythm. It is in these primary grades that genuine, solid work must be done, for it is here the foundation is laid upon which the advancing grades are to build. Unless there is to be a mushroomy, flimsy structure, that will not bear close inspection, we all know there must be conscientious work done by the teacher in this foundation

laying. It is the part of the work affording the least opportunity to "show off" your pupils, even as the slow process of digging and putting in the foundation of a building is the least observed both before and after the building is erected.

But it is our duty as exponents of our much-abused art to raise our voices against this lack of proper foundation work. Sight-reading is one of our great needs, and it is this very need that has brought about the increased facilities for music in the public schools.

The primary teacher no longer teaches the child to say, "This-is-acat," "That-is-a-rat,” and calls it reading. Neither must the child be taught the simplest exercises or songs as a parrot would be taught them. The primary teacher must, therefore, have sufficient knowledge of musical expression to avoid this danger, for, as important a part of this question as sight-reading is, it is not the whole thing. The spirit of the thing must not be buried in the letter.

The first expression of music was rhythm, and this is an important point with the primary grades. While the supervisor selects the songs and exercises, the teacher must have a thoro knowledge of rhythm and time.

These primary teachers must have some knowledge of tone production and what this signifies. The young voice must be handled gently and wisely; otherwise we shall have in a few years' time a lot of crippled, misshapen voices that will be nothing short of criminal. To illustrate: What could be more offensive than the monstrous nuisance of the so called "methods" used by some so-called "vocal instructors," who have turned loose upon the listening public a horde of singers with quivering, vibrato methods of producing tone that reminds one of so many frightened billy goats. Give me a cultivated voice, but let the billy goat stay in the back pasture where he belongs.

The teacher should be able to sing a pure, clear tone, and if unable to do so should keep still, for the child thought is too receptive to have any bad pictures held before it. Indeed, the grade teacher should do no singing beyond what is absolutely necessary. If unable to sing a pure

tone, the teacher should know how it can be done. Young children need a curbing hand when it comes to singing, for they are naturally disposed to shout, and the voice must be intelligently guarded and guided during the first grades. The real teacher is one who seeks for what is within the child, finds it, and then nourishes and develops the child's native capacities. The old way of simply pouring and cramming the same thing into every pupil is no more teaching than darkness is light. As the grades ascend, the grade teacher must naturally know more about the science of music.

The higher grade teachers should be able to build an exercise as a suitable study for that special grade, tho I do not advocate the extensive use of home-made exercises. You will see at a glance that this means a good deal to us now, but in the lapse of a few years it will be considered

a matter of course. There is so much that enters into the fabric of music, when you set out to furnish a whole garment, that each teacher should set before himself a high standard and never stop until it is attained. You cannot jump up to this elevation in a course of "six week's summer schooling," but you can begin, and climb one step at a time, always working in the light of thoro understanding of what you leave behind as you advance. The higher grade teachers must have an intimate personal acquaintance with musical history, musical biography, and musical lore in general; and the teacher who has never looked into the vast storehouse of music will find many brilliant gems to set into his coronet of knowledge. It is the refining influence necessary to education and culture, and twenty years from now all these efforts to raise the standard of music, to bring this sweet breath of harmony into darkened and sodden homes, will be rewarded. The higher grade teachers need not sing unless there is the ability to present a pure, clear tone. There will always be some pupil or pupils who will be able to "lead," and with the thoro work done in the primary grades the pupils will be able to read. These are the necessary qualifications for the teachers of our public schools, as we now stand, and no teacher need feel the least alarm about undertaking the task set before him, for it is not difficult of attainment; it simply requires a systematic, conscientious effort on the part of any man or woman who has chosen the vocation of teacher. Good teachers in any line work for results, and not merely for the reward. In a few years' time this country, as a nation, will feel the beneficent influence of this most important work of putting music into the lives of every school boy and girl in the land.

In each grade the work should be thoroly done, and this does not mean that a few or many songs should be well sung, by any manner of means. No more is a pupil a thoro mathematician who can swiftly and accurately work a certain set of problems than one is a thoro musician who can sing a certain number of songs in the most acceptable manner, if these songs are not merely the structure that rests on a solid foundation. And when in due time we look upon the beautiful results of some years of work and see a symmetrical structure fitly framed and put together with classic columns and gilded dome, let us not forget to give thanks for the unseen and humble work of the foundation layer - the primary teacher.

There should be an all-around effort made to equip the country teacher with a good knowledge of this entire subject, for here is the greatest need. The children are cut off from much contact with any sound of music, except the hymns as they hear them in the country churches, or the "fiddle" as they hear it at some country dance; and it is here we find Egyptian darkness so far as music is concerned.

I once came in personal contact with an illustration of the difference between the musical development among the lower classes of our own country and that of foreign nations. One summer, while camping in the