JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 4I 



it may be said without a particle of exaggeration that minus noise a 

 child is nowhere. So tacitly do parents recognize this as a fact, that 

 they actually provide their children with the means of gratifying this 

 propensity. Spoons, tin pans, drums and wind-instruments of 

 *' fearful and wonderful " construction occupy a place in every 

 juvenile chorus. When a little more advanced in years the sweetest 

 of music seems to have no charms for sturdy boyhood comparable 

 to that produced by the rat-a-tat-tat of a stick drawn rapidly over the 

 pickets of a fence or the bars of a window grating, the result being 

 not unlike that from the favorite rattle of most primitive peoples. 



To grown-up boys the production of loud and discordant 

 sounds affords joy ineffable. I have listened with pleasure (not 

 aesthetic, but scientific pleasure,) to a group of boys from ten to 

 fourteen years of age, sitting on a pile of lumber during a summer 

 evening, enjoying themselves to the full as they vied with each 

 other in giving utterance to the most unearthly howls and yells. 



During the periods of maturity and old age the noise producing 

 proclivity is less noticeable only because it is more under control, 

 for the exercise of thought is not calculated to encourage the making 

 of unmeaning sounds, unless under emotional influences, when it can 

 scarcely be held that the judgment is responsible. In connection 

 with political triumphs, victories in war, celebrations, and popular 

 rejoicings of every kind, nothing short of lusty cheers and the dis- 

 charge of firearms seem to satisfy the average human being in his 

 desire to testify gratification. On such occasions "three cheers 

 and a tiger" indicate the highest attainable point of happiness. 



In process of time we have harmonized the dissonant utterances 

 of our ancient forefathers. We have formed a gamut of such notes 

 as the voice is capable of producing. From the bow-string and the 

 reed we have elaborated the piano and the organ, and just in so far 

 as we are capable of appreciating refined vocal and instrumental 

 utterances are we judged to possess musical culture, i. e., are we 

 reckoned to be above primitivism. 



In the gentle rhythmical motion, or the rapid whirl of the 

 " mazy dance," it is not difficult to guess shrewdly as to the sources. 



When the original dance was not of a religious character it was 

 either to anticipate or to celebrate victory in a fight, and in the 

 civilized forms of this amusement, so far as the latter origin is con- 



