1498 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



the text before our eyes. Use good-song standards, measure American 

 songs by these standards, learn them, sing them. The country home, 

 with its agricultural " backbone of the nation " to keep straight and 

 to make use of, has a privilege and a duty to perform in the founding 

 of a musical system that will bring credit to America from the nations 

 that now choose to judge her by American " ragtime." 



The test of personal possession 



Has the song lived? Will the song live? In addition to these tests 

 of a song there is a third, which we may call the test of personal possession. 

 Does or will the song live for me, the individual? Has it a place in my 

 life for reasons personal and of value to me? Has it had the power with 

 me to suggest thought, action, habit, character? As a memory, does 

 it leave me unashamed and glad to recall it ? Is it a song by which I shall 

 be happy to have my children remember their home? All these are 

 questions that the test of personal possession applies to a song. Songs 

 that can stand this test may be folk songs and folk ballads, the class 

 of which Dr. Claxton spoke, or they may be the " old songs " defended 

 by Richard Le Gallienne. To whatever class they may belong, they are 

 our songs and we are quick to defend them, with or without the test 

 proofs of their having lived for any one else than ourselves. They may 

 be recent, but more than likely they are good songs to us because they 

 are the songs of our early homes. They have stood the test of personal 

 possession. These songs are the children's heritage. 



A HERITAGE OF SONG 



There is no life so well favored that it has no need of a heritage of 

 home song. Few there be of that great family of persons whose child- 

 hood lies well in the past who do not consciously realize from such an 

 inheritance. A very few songs may constitute their riches and these 

 of little intrinsic merit, a mother's bedtime croon, a father's simple old 

 hymn, a family chorus or glee, some favorite from old days that association 

 has kept. Yet no price could buy this heritage of song. 



The sons and daughters of other lands, seeking better opportunities 

 for living for themselves and for their children, cross to the American 

 shore. In New York State are to be found thousands of men, women, 

 and children whose native land lies far away from this new home of their 

 adoption. Many families that thus bravely began home-building in 

 a strange country brought with them very little of this world's goods, 

 yet not one came without a heritage of song as a gift to the community 

 into whose life the members of that family went to become citizens. In 



