Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 76
Scan 76
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
17 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 54. See the scan on archive.org.
12. EDUCATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS
3Most of the present day publishers are issuing more or less music which can be considered educational in the sense that it is of a type tending to create a taste for finer music, although it may be more recreational than strictly intellectual. Hence the term educational music publishers is used here to connote publishers of music designed for school and college use.
5Since the publications of music for school use have kept pace closely with the development of school music, the progress of music in the schools is sketched briefly here.
7The teaching of vocal music in the public schools of the United States was first undertaken in the grammar grades of Boston Public Schools by Lowell Mason in 1837¹ and continued by him until 1841, when he was succeeded by Benjamin F. Baker. Music was not taught in the primary grades of Boston until 1864 when Luther Whiting Mason was appointed to supervise its introduction because he had been successful in introducing it in those grades in Cincinnati in 1857. Under Julius Eichberg's supervision music was first put into some of the Boston high schools in 1869. Its extension in 1872 into all the high schools of the city formed a complete public school system.
9Originally music was taught as a special subject by a special teacher. Gradually this teacher became a supervisor of the grade teachers who were made responsible for its teaching.
11"The development of music in the high school as a serious study has taken place almost wholly within the present century and mostly within the last fifteen years,"² especially instrumental music.
13"The aims of school music teaching have shifted considerably from epoch to epoch, but always in the direction of values more and more clearly musical. In the introductory period the aim was to have every child learn to sing and the values most thought of were those of recreation following mental fatigue from other studies. In the next generation the aim was to have every child learn to read music as a key to understanding its treasures, a value which
15¹ The authorities made no appropriation so he had to serve this year without salary and supply his own books and materials.
16² Birge, Edward Bailey. History of Public School Music in the United States, published 1928, p. 161.
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