October ii, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



249 



strels have carried it about ; men have sung their songs in field and 

 forest ; women have sung their songs at the oven and the loom ; 

 boys have sung their songs while driving the herds to pasture, and 

 girls while milking cows ; and there are songs for all times and all 

 conditions and all peoples. Song has ever remained as folk-music, 

 the delight of the people. 



There are songs celebrating all passions, — all joys and all sor- 

 rows, all hopes and all fears, all loves and all hates. All the emo- 

 tions of the human soul are coined into song. Song is the reservoir 

 into which all human feelings are poured, and it is the fountain 

 from which all human feelings may be drawn. And this is true 

 not only in our language, but in all languages. 



When harmony was given to music through its association with 

 the drama, musical compositions were no longer confined to simple 

 songs for the field, the fireside, and the chapel, but great pieces 

 were composed for the temple and theatre, and music was made 

 to express the emotions of religion and romance, as in the oratorio, 

 cantata, and opera. This music bore on its wings the hope of 

 heaven and the fear of hell. It told of the joy of the angels 

 before the throne of God, and of the torments of demons in the 

 presence of the Devil. The profane music of this period related 

 biographies and histories filled with love and revenge, virtue and 

 crime, courage and cowardice, repose and tragedy. Music in this 

 stage is freighted with the feelings that are kindled and expressed 

 by laughter and crying, by prattle and wrangling, by caresses and 

 blows, by kisses and frowns, by praise and reproof, by plenty and 

 poverty, by strength and weakness, by health and disease, by 

 birth and death, by festivals and funerals, by carnivals and battles, 

 by peace and war, by victory and defeat, by justice and injus- 

 tice. 



And now we must speak of the symphonic stage of music, when 

 science has given it a multitude of sweet instruments. 



The art of music was not born of the music of Nature : it was 

 born of the pains and pleasures, the joys and sorrows, of man- 

 kind. 



The appreciation of the beauties of nature is of slow growth ; 

 and it is only in civilization, and with the most cultured people 

 of civilization, that these beauties are sources of joy ; and it is 

 only in the latest music that the highest intellectual pleasures are 

 ■expressed. The beauties of the earth, the sea, and the air and 

 the sublime spectacle of the heavens, are gradually being wrought 

 into the emotional nature of mankind ; and the new music is in- 

 formed with the strains that are played by Old Ocean against the 

 shores of every land. It is filled with the anthem-music of the 

 forest, and the songs of the birds that chorus the round earth with 

 the rising sun. 



In its late history new attributes have been added from the con- 

 templation of nature. These are feelings kindled by the higher 

 intellectual activities. The human reason has acquired a knowl- 

 edge of the universe, and derived exalted emotions therefrom. The 

 boundless sea now tells its story. From arctic and antarctic lands 

 navies of icebergs forever sail, to be defeated and overwhelmed by 

 the hot winds of the tropics. The lands with happy valleys and 

 majestic mountains rise from the sea, built by the waves and fash- 

 ioned by fire and storm. Over all rests the ambient air, moving 

 gently in breezes, rushing madly in winds, and hurling its storms 

 against the hills and mountains of the sea and the hills and moun- 

 tains of the land. 



The land, the sea, and the air are the home of a world of life, 

 which man studies with ever-increasing interest and pleasure. The 

 solid earth is composed of crystalline forms, and exhibits chemical 

 ■activities which ever challenge admiration. Sound and heat, and 

 light and electricity, and vitality and mentality, present modes of 

 motion the contemplation of which fills the mind with delight. 

 Looking above the earth, the worlds of the universe are presented 

 to view, and their wonders fill the soul. So music has come to be 

 the language of the emotions kindled by the glories of the uni- 

 verse. 



Thus is seen the growth of music in four stages, — music as 

 rhythm, music as melody, music as harmony, and music as sym- 

 phony. Rhythm was born of the dance, melody was born of poet- 



ry, harmony was born of drama, symphony was born of science. 

 The motive of rhythmic music was biotic exaltation, the motive of 

 melody was social exaltation, the motive of harmony was religious 

 exaltation, the motive of symphony is aesthetic exaltation. It is thus 

 seen that music develops from the emotional nature of man, as 

 philosophy has its spring in the intellectual nature. The earliest 

 emotions arose from the biotic constitution, — -simple pleasure or 

 pain, as felt in the body and expressed in rhythm : they were mere 

 feelings. Then feelings were idealized, and became emotions, and 

 were expressed in melody ; then the emotions were idealized, and 

 became sentiments, and were expressed in harmony ; then the senti- 

 ments were idealized, and became intellectual conceptions of the 

 beautiful, the true, and the good, and these were expressed in sym- 

 phony. 



Is there a new music for the future.' The science of music an- 

 swers, " Yes." We know that music has been chained to " form," 

 and imprisoned in the Bastile of musical intervals, and guarded by 

 the henchmen of mathematical dogmas. But a few great musical 

 composers, like Wagner, have broken the chains, and burst the 

 bars, and killed the jailers, and they sing their liberty in strains of 

 transcendent music. 



When it is desired to cultivate skill in musical performance, it is 

 necessary to cultivate the art in the individual in the same order 

 in which it is cultivated in the race ; and he must first master 

 rhythm, then melody, then harmony, then symphony. Then the 

 love for music must be acquired in the same order. No one can 

 love a symphony or an opera who does not first love song. If you 

 would love the higher music, you must love the songs of the people ; 

 and to affirm that you love a symphony, or an opera, or a cantata, 

 but that you do not love a song, is like averring that you love a 

 garden but do not love a rose, that you love a bouquet but care not 

 for a lily : for a symphony is indeed but a bouquet of melodies, and 

 an opera is a garden of many flowers. 



Happy is the home that is filled with song, where boys and girls 

 sing the melodies of the people, and where they make these melo- 

 dies more musical with the violin, the piano, or the flute ; for to 

 music is consigned the purest joy. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



In addition to the election of Dr. Weir Mitchell as president 

 of the next Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, to be 

 held in September, 1891, which we have already noticed. Dr. W. 

 H. Carmalt of New Haven was elected secretary ; Dr. J. S. Bil- 

 lings of Washington, treasurer ; Dr. William Pepper of Philadel- 

 phia, chairman of the executive committee ; and Dr. S. C. Busey of 

 Washington, chairman of the local committee of arrangements. 

 Dr. C. H. Mastin of Mobile is reported to have declined the presi- 

 dency, on the ground that no member of the executive committee 

 ought to be elected to the presidency. 



— The fifty-eighth annual industrial exhibition of the American 

 Institute of this city is now in progress at the Institute building, on 

 Third Avenue, between Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Streets. The 

 building is well filled with tastefully arranged exhibits, covering a 

 wide range of industries, several in which manufacturing processes 

 are shown being especially attractive and interesting. The elec- 

 trical exhibits are not as numerous as might be expected, there 

 being only three electric-light companies and a few manufacturers 

 of electrical instruments represented. 



— In view of the reports which have recently been published re- 

 specting the Johns Hopkins University, President Oilman author- 

 izes the statement that the university will begin its next year on 

 the 1st of October with unimpaired efficiency. Neither the salary 

 of the president nor those of the professors have been cut down, 

 and several new appointments have been made. The indications 

 during the summer have pointed to the usual number of students, 

 and the courses of instruction will be given as announced in the 

 programme. As to the finances of the university, it is no secret 

 that the income derived from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was 

 cut off some time ago ; but the accumulated income of former 

 years, the income from investments outside of the railroad, the in- 

 come from tuition (which amounted last year to nearly $40,000), 

 are available. Besides all this, a number of generous persons have 



