Missouri Home Makers' Conference. 599 



maturity and so far have kept them out of the penitentiary. 

 Seriously speaking, we should not minimize the importance of 

 all of these questions, but the largest influence, after all, which 

 comes into the life of the child is that which emanates from 

 the home, the most unconscious but the most subtle and lasting, 

 and to bring into the home the music and art which shall set a 

 standard for all time should be the effort of the mother. There 

 was a time before the invention of what some of our friends 

 insist upon calling "canned music" when it was difficult to 

 familiarize the child or even the adult with the best kind of 

 music. The girl who had taken valuable hours from study and 

 recreation in God's out-of-doors to practice, as soon as she had 

 a home of her own found no time to keep up her music, and 

 after six months or a year the piano was abandoned for house- 

 hold tasks and the home was musicless. This need not be 

 the condition now, for we have the piano player and victrola 

 in every home where music is really desired. It is hard to 

 estimate the possible educational advantage (notice I speak 

 of it as a possibility for musical education), but I must em- 

 phasize the fact that in homes without number this is only a 

 possibility and not a reality. It is possible to go to a boun- 

 tifully spread table and partake of the wholesome and palatable 

 food, but quite as simple is it to eat only the pickles and sweets 

 with the attendant lack of benefit and satisfaction. Hence, 

 when these instruments are introduced in the home and the 

 mother lacks the standard and ambition for the best music, 

 the damage is great. No art has a more insinuating influence, 

 and the child who hears first from the mother a lullaby of 

 musical worth and value is likely to have an ear trained in time 

 for the best, and if this child is given songs suitable to its age 

 and development, simple, worthy and beautiful, there will be 

 in the inmost self of that child something developed which 

 will be of the greatest value in later years. 



I have been often interested to hear people of intelligence 

 and pronounced education say, "I can enjoy music which has 

 a tune and I really am very musical, but I do not care to know 

 about Wagner and Beethoven. I do not believe anybody 

 really enjoys such music." And I always find that such an one 

 has not gone about the task of educating himself along this line 

 as he has in literature and other branches of culture. Just as 

 well never learn your alphabet and expect some fine day to enjoy 

 yourself with a volume of Browning or Shakespeare as to neglect 



