useful thoughts; so that, when the music sounds the sweetliest in my ears, truth commonly flows the clearest in my mind. And hence it is that I find my soul is become more harmonious by being accustomed so much to harmony, and adverse to all manners of discord, that the least jarring sounds, either in notes or words, seem very harsh and unpleasant to me."

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I have spoken of the fact, that all men are more or less susceptible to the influence of music. It is also true that all can acquire the rudiments of the art. It has long been supposed the child must be enaowed with what is called a musical ear. That this, however, is an error, is evident from experiments which have been made on the most extensive scale in Germany, and which are now repeating in this country. In Germany, almost every child at school, is instructed in singing, as well as in reading. The result is, that though in this respect, as in many others, there is great difference in the natural aptitude of children, still all who can learn to read, can also learn to sing.* It is found, farther, that this knowledge can be ac

"The universal success, also, and very beneficial results, with which the arts of drawing and designing, vocal and instrumental music, moral instruction, and the Bible, have been introduced into schools, was another fact peculiarly interesting to me. I asked all the teachers with whom I conversed, whether they did not sometimes find children who were actually incapable of learning to draw and to sing. I have had but one reply, and that was, that they found the same diversity of natural talent in regard to these as in regard to reading, writing, and the other branches of education; but they had never seen a child who was capable of learning to read and write, who could not be taught to sing well and draw neatly, and that, too, without taking any time which would at all interfere with, indeed, which would not actually promote, his progress in other studies. In regard to the necessity of moral instruction, and the beneficial influence of the Bible in schools, the testimony was no less explicit and uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, and of men of every grade of religious faith; instructers in common schools, high

quired without interfering with the other branches of study, and with evident benefit both to the disposition of the scholars, and the discipline of the school. A gentleman who, in this country, has ha more than 4000 pupils in music, affirms that his experience gives the same result. The number of schools among us, in which music is made one of the regular branches of elementary instruction, is already great, and is constantly increasing, and I have heard of no case in which, with proper training, every child has not been found capable of learning. Indeed, the fact, that among the ancients and in the schools of the Middle Ages, music was regarded as indispensable in a full course of education, might of itself teach us, that the prejudice in question is founded in error.

Another consideration which gives music special claims on our regard as a branch of culture, is, that the best specimens of the art are within our reach. It is rare, that the pupil can ever look, in this country, on the original works of a master, in painting or sculpture. We have engravings, casts,

schools, and schools of art; of professors in colleges, universitics, and professional seminaries in cities and in the country; in places where there was a uniformity and in places where there was a diversity of creeds; of believers and unbelievers; of rationalists and enthusiasts; of Catholics and Protestants, and I never found but one reply; and that was, that to leave the moral faculty uninstructed was to leave the most important part of the human mind undeveloped, and to strip education of almost everything that can make it valuable; and that the Bible, independently of the interest attending it, as containing the most ancient and influential writings ever recorded by human hands, and comprising the religious system of almost the whole of the civilized world, is in itself the best book that can be put into the hands of children to interest, to exercise, and to unfold the intellectual and moral powers. Every teacher whom I consulted repelled with indignation the idea that moral instruction is not proper for schools, and that the Bible cannot be introduced into common schools without encouraging sectarian bias in the matter of teaching."-STOWE's Report, &o.

and other copies, but they can give us only faint conceptions of the artist's design, and of his execution hardly an idea. In written music, we have a transcript of the conceptions of the composer, almost as complete as in written poetry or eloquence, and as easy of access.

In all these arts, however, much may be done to call forth and improve the taste of our people. By multiplying exhibitions of art; by extending patronage to the native talent for painting and sculpture which abounds among us; by promoting efforts for the diffusion of a correct taste in music, and a love for that art, so essential in our devotions, and so useful everywhere; and, finally and especially, by introdu cing elementary instruction, both in music and drawing, into our schools, we can do much towards securing for our land the multiplied blessings which would result from the general love of art.

Says a late Report of the School Committee of the City of Boston, when speaking of Drawing, "Your committee cannot help remarking, as they pass, that, in their opinion, there is no good reason for excluding the art of linear drawing from any liberal scheme of popular instruction. It has a direct tendency to quicken that important faculty, the faculty of observation. It is a supplement to writing. It is in close alliance with geometry. . It is conversant with form, and intimately connected with all the improvements in the mechanic arts. In all the mechanical, and many of the other employments of life, it is of high practical utility. Drawing, like music, is not an accomplishment only; it has important uses and if music be successfully introduced into our public schools, your committee express the hope and the conviction that drawing, sooner or later, will follow."

In the same report the committee observe, "There are said to be at this time not far from eighty thousand common schools in this country, in which are to be found the

people who, in coming years, will mould the character of this democracy. If vocal music were generally adopted as a branch of instruction in these schools, it might be reasonably expected, that in at least two generations, we should be changed into a musical people. The great point to be considered, in reference to the introduction of vocal music into popular elementary instruction, is, that thereby you set in motion a mighty power, which silently, but surely in the end, will humanize, refine, and elevate a whole community.* Music is one of the fine arts; it therefore deals with

* “We have listened,” says a recent traveller in Switzerland, “to the peasant children's songs, as they went out to their morning occupations, and saw their hearts enkindled to the highest tones of music and poetry by the setting sun or the familiar objects of nature, each of which was made to echo some truth, or point to some duty, by an appropriate song. We have heard them sing 'the harvest hymn' as they went forth, before daylight, to gather in the grain. We have seen them assemble in groups at night, chanting a hymn of praise for the glories of the heavens, or joining in some patriotic chorus or some social melody, instead of the frivolous and corrupting conversation which so often renders such meetings the source of evil. In addition to this, we visited communities where the youth had been trained from their childhood to exercises in vocal music, of such a character as to elevate instead of debasing the mind, and have found that it served in the same manner to cheer their social assemblies, in place of the noise of folly or the poisoned cup of intoxication. We have seen the young men of such a community assembled to the number of several hundreds, from a circuit of twenty miles; and, instead of spending a day of festivity in rioting and drunkenness, pass the whole time, with the exception of that employed in a frugal repast and a social meeting, in a concert of social, moral, and religious hymns, and devote the proceeds of the exhibition to some object of benevolence. We could not but look at the contrast presented on similar occasions in our own country with a blush of shame. We have visited a village whose whole moral aspect was changed in a few years by the introduction of music of this character, even among adults, and where the aged were compelled to express their astonishment at seeing the young abandon their corrupting and riotous amusements for this delightful and improving exercise."

abstract beauty, and so lifts man to the source of all beauty —from finite to infinite, and from the world of matter to the world of spirits and to God. Music is the great handmaid of civilization. Whence come those traditions of a reverend antiquity—seditions quelled, cures wrought, fleets and armies governed by the force of song-whence that responding of rocks, woods, and trees to the harp of Orpheuswhence a city's walls uprising beneath the wonder-working touches of Apollo's lyre? These, it is true, are fables; yet they shadow forth, beneath the veil of allegory, a profound truth. They beautifully proclaim the mysterious union between music, as an instrument of man's civilization, and the soul of man. Prophets and wise men, large-minded lawgivers of an olden time, understood and acted on this truth. The ancient oracles were uttered in song. The laws of the Twelve Tables were put to music and got by heart at school. Minstrel and sage are, in some languages, convertible terms. Music is allied to the highest sentiments of man's moral nature love of God, love of country, love of friends. Wo to the nation in which these sentiments are allowed to go to decay! What tongue can tell the unutterable energies that reside in these three engines church music, national airs, and fireside melodies means of informing and enlarging the mighty heart of a free people!"

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In thus describing the kind of education which is called for by the situation of our country and the spirit of the age, I have referred, not only to school education, but to all the agencies, which tend to form the minds, and characters of the rising generation. It is one thing to set forth what this education ought to be, and quite another to determine what it actually is. On this latter point, all who wish well to their country ought to speak plainly; their evidence should be given in without prejudice or passion; with no alloy of

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