192 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
trained men to carry on their tradition through every corner of the 
land. Yet hardly less in importance is the action which has recently 
been taken by some county and municipal authorities, who have 
appointed special Directors of Music to organise the work for all the 
schools in their area. The improvement already effected by this means 
is very remarkable, and will be the more conspicuous still as the move- 
ment spreads and advances. 
What, then, it may be asked, further remains for us to do? The 
answer may be suggested on the following lines: First, that music 
should be recognised in our formal education of school and college; 
that it should be given a place in the curriculum and full recognition 
in the examination system. It is likely that this proposal will at 
once arouse an outcry, on the ground that it is adding a new subject 
to an already overloaded scheme. But, in the first place, I have never 
known any teacher complain of overloading in regard to his particular 
subject; and, in the second place, I would suggest that music for 
the whole school should consist of little more than class singing and 
an occasional concert or lecture, and that those who have the taste 
and aptitude for pursuing its serious study should do so in substitution 
for some other subject. The study of a great composer might be made 
of as much educational value as that of a great poet. On the other 
side, the qualities of abstract thinking and of mental construction 
implied in the study of musical form are closely analogous to those of 
our natural sciences, and might well be made of the same educational 
value. It should be quite possible to draw up a syllabus for music 
which would fit into the existing schemes of school and college work, 
and which would neither encourage faddists, nor excuse idlers, nor 
produce that lamentable class of people, not yet quite extinct, who 
talk emotionally about music without any understanding. Secondly, 
there should be a great improvement in the place of music in our 
libraries. Every public library in the country and, if possible, every 
school and University library should contain a musical department 
which includes not only the standard classical compositions, but the 
first-rate books on musical esthetics and criticism, There are a great 
many more of such books than is commonly supposed. Almost every 
civilised nation has contributed to them, and they range from enter- 
taining volumes of light essays to such profound philosophical treatises 
as Schopenhauer’s book on ‘The Platonic Idea.’ At present an 
allusion to music in average society would tend to cut the conversation 
down to the roots; half the company would feel nervous and uncom- 
fortable, half apprehensive of a dull or pontifical lecture. It ought to 
be just as possible for people to be well read in music and interested 
in communicating their ideas about it as they are at present in ordinary 
civilised society over questions of literature or the representative arts. 
And this leads to a third point—that the ordinary educated man ought 
to be trained to read music. The script, though it is not always very 
rational, is not unduly difficult, and its mastery unlocks the door of 
a new literature. A very great many of us haye only rare and infrequent 
opportunities of hearing the best music. We have no means of refreshing 
our memories between recurrent performances, and we therefore lose 
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