No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 379 



of little inti'insic 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 i)rice could buy this heritage of song. 



The sons and daughters of other lands, seeking better opportunities 

 for living for themsplves and for their children, cross to the Ameri- 

 can shore. In Pennsylvania are to be found thousands of men, 

 women, and children Avhose native land lies far away from this new 

 home of their adoi)tion. Many families that thus bravely began 

 home-building in a strange country brought Avith 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 many instances we have heard the 

 fathers and mothers in their farm homes, 



''Sing to their sons those melodies. 

 Those songs their fathers sung." 



How welcome such songs are with their age-long standards of loyalty 

 and purity and truth ! Songs that have lived years and centuries in 

 the Old World because they sang of country, and home, and mother, 

 and God, should go on living in the New World, singing of country, 

 and home, and mother, and God. Richard of Saltoun said, "Let me 

 write the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.'' 

 Sing the songs of the country whose blood you bring to America 

 and you will help make the laws that must best govern song-making 

 and song-singing in this "land of the free and home of the brave." 

 If we are to become a music-loving nation, we must have American 

 music; it must smack of our soil; it must embody the character and 

 express the tendency and trend of American life; it must bear the 

 marks of our weal and woe; it must show in strongly marked rhythms 

 the effect of our developed and developing national energ}'; it must 

 be the faithful interpreter of the true American. 



Has the song lived? Will the song live? In addition to all techni- 

 calities of a song there is another, which we may call the test of per- 

 sonal 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 memory, does it leave me unashamed and glad to re- 

 call it? Is it a song by which I shall be happy to have my children 

 remember their home? 



Are our home, school, community songs the bearers of good and 

 imperishable associations? 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 songs, which through a long 

 life they will respond to because child and song grew and lived 

 together. 



