Scan 23
Musical Courier 1902-06-04: Vol 44 Iss 1158, 1902
56 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE PROPOSED NATIONAL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC.
3WE publish herewith the argument in favor of a national conservatory of music and art, a bill for the same having been introduced into the Senate by Senator Mason, of Illinois, and in the House by Representative Metcalf, of California.
5Colonel Kowalsky's argument enters into a lucid explanation of the various phases of this highly important national educational project. Some of the technical positions taken by the Colonel are based on broad general propositions so as to have them understood by the layman.
7It is necessary to study carefully this plan in order to get its true bearing on the music of the future of the United States:
9NATIONAL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC AND ART.
11Argument in Favor of a National Conservatory of Music and Art by Henry I. Kowalsky, of San Francisco, Cal.
13MAY 16, 1902.—Referred to the Committee on Education and Labor and ordered to be printed.
15THE PLAN PROPOSED.
17Is to establish one conservatory in the city or vicinity of Washington, D. C., which will be a building containing forty studios sufficiently large for classes of fifty students of music, and twenty studios for painting; one large assembly concert hall for ensemble. It is to be known and called The American National Conservatory of Music and Art. The second to be established of a similar character at New York; another at or near Chicago, Ill., and a fourth in the vicinity of San Francisco, Cal. Certain States are to be apportioned to each conservatory, and to be known as the district to which the pupils of the several States that shall be so apportioned will attend. The purpose is to reach the respective parts of the Union, making the Boston Conservatory meet the demands of the East, Washington the South, Chicago the Middle West and California the extreme West. Only advanced pupils in music and art will be admitted, after passing an examination, the standard of which will be fixed by the board of regents or directors.
19The importance of having the conservatory sectionized, as above proposed, is due to the fact that paternal control over the student is an important factor. Students must be within a convenient distance of their home, so that the parents can have an opportunity of observing the progress of the pupil. The primary method for furnishing high class professors and masters is suggested by bringing from the different parts of Europe the highest class professors and masters that can there be found who are willing to come to America. After five years our own students will graduate to such a state of perfection that the conservatory will be able to obtain its professors out of its institutions here established. To control and govern these conservatories, a national board of regents shall consist of the President of the United States, as an ex-officio member; the President pro tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the Senate and House Committees on Education, and seven citizens selected by the President. They shall be known as the governing and controlling board, who shall elect the general director, whose salary will be fixed by the said board.
21The general board will appoint advisory boards from the citizens of the respective districts to be hereafter designated, which boards shall select and employ a director, who shall take charge of the specific territory for which he will be named. Subject to the policy of the general governing board an entrance fee for a term of three years, not exceeding $50, shall be required from each pupil upon their being admitted as a student.
23NUMBER OF AMERICAN STUDENTS ABROAD AND THE AMOUNT OF AMERICAN MONEY EXPENDED.
25At the present time, at a conservative estimate, there are 40,000 American students abroad scattered in the different cities of Europe. The minimum sum for which they can be maintained in the cheapest and most economical parts of Europe is equivalent to $2 per day, which means $80,000 a day of American money paid to foreigners, or $2,400,000 per month. Or you may say for a three years' term, Americans spend $75,000,000 trying to obtain an education in music and art abroad, while here at home these four institutions can be fully equipped and conducted upon the very highest possible plane within a cost of $1,000,000 per annum.
27Aside from the financial feature to America and Americans, it saves our children from exile. The majority of the young men who go abroad never return to this country; many of them become inoculated with the vagrant and Bohemian habits that are prevalent in the respective Latin quarters of the big cities of Europe. They dress and ape the foreigners and waste their time about the cafés. The life is free and indolent, and in place of becoming students they are not only wasting their own time, but spending the hard earned money of their parents, many of whom deny themselves comforts at home in order to maintain the indifferent member of the family abroad. Up to date we have not developed a single virtuoso on the violin or 'cello who has made a great reputation, nor a great pianist or 'cellist, and if perchance any of our American students succeed, they cannot progress or obtain fame under their American name, they have got to assume some foreign, unspeakable name, and the credit to their birth and honor to their family who spends their money to educate is lost.
29We have Paderewskis, Kubeliks, Ysayes, Gerardys, Sarasates, born in America, but who have lacked opportunity, therefore nobody knows of them; while these foreigners come here, are worshiped by American audiences and take away great sacks of American coin. America has led in everything financial and mechanical, and if the musical youth of our country is permitted to develop under Government control, within ten years it is fair to predict that America will commence to send musical wonders abroad. The amount of money required to carry out this grand project is so infinitesimally small when compared with the great amounts the nation is spending annually in many other directions that the money it will take can not possibly deter any patriotic legislator, who loves his country and his people, from voting to appropriate the sum required.
31WHAT AN EDUCATION IN MUSIC MEANS.
33To be educated in music means more than the mere playing of an instrument. In our general education we are started in the kindergarten to acquire our A B C's; then we go to the primary school; from there to the grammar school and up to the high school; then a preparatory school, to permit your entering a university; and even in graduating from the university you find many seeking the post-graduate course. All this education is upon subjects, themes and conditions; problems that can be demonstrated, illustrated, fully defined, so you can see with the eye and reason out with the brain. Every one of the senses comes to the student's assistance. But this is not so in music, because the first prerequisite to the ultimate making of a good musician is the quality of inheritance, or the natural liking or passion for music. With this foundation, you can hope to build on. Your ear is the dependent sense; with that organ destroyed, you are concluded as a musician.
35Now, as to music as compared to the general education. It is much more difficult. Let us see why.
37Everybody can be educated in the ordinary branches of learning—in a mechanical way—for it is a dull mind that cannot understand that which the eye sees and is explained and demonstrated to them.
39In music, in playing nearly all instruments except the piano, you have to form your own notes, or rather make your own music; while on the piano the notes are formed and placed according to their keys and frequency of requirement. Yet with all this great assistance in favor of the person playing the piano, observe how few succeed; and contemplate further that no American has yet made a world famous name as a player of this instrument. You will ask, why? Well, the fullest and truest reason is because music is not properly taught in America. Music means as much, if you would know it properly, as a general education does. This all comes under the head of what is known in the musical world as "solfège," which is the generic term for everything that must be known of the organization of music in every sense in which it must be intelligently understood by the student before they become finished on the instrument they seek to essay.
41In other words, under the head of "solfège" there is harmony, counterpoint, composition, orchestration, history of music, voice building, ensemble playing, sight reading, theory, time, tone, interpretation, analysis, theme, construction, phrasing.
43And the knowledge of all this is as important to the artist as his gift from the Divine Providence. It is a branch that is independent of the instrument, and must be taught at first as you teach the A B C—this is the syntax to music. Heretofore this has not been taught under proper masters or under an organized system. You can see under this head how many departments it divides into. So while one man may be a good teacher in time, or tone, or harmony, he may not be up in compositions, orchestration, ensemble and so on.
45Learning music properly is not a side issue; it is a hard task, that requires more devotion than any other condition of learning, no matter what else you may mention. The ardent student practices on his instrument from five to eight hours daily. Of course he must love his work or the physical condition, if not sustained by the high sentiment and ambition of the artistic nature, would succumb and break under the great strain. It deserves all the aid and fostering you can give it.
47MUSIC PROPERLY TAUGHT.
49This cannot be done without a proper foundation is laid. If you were going to build a grand building you would first select a proper site upon which to erect the same. Then you would have the architect draw your plans. Then you would dig and cut away for a proper foundation. This done, you would make your foundation the strongest part of your building, for upon it rests all the balance. Then up goes the framework, story by story; then you fill in the walls, ceilings, &c.; then you roof it; then you ornament it outside and then inside, and after it is completed you contemplate how much labor and thought there is connected with the building of a single structure.
51So it is with a musical career, only more involved and more labor. The soul, the heart, as well as the physical constitution of the artist, is absolutely involved, as he is the sole operator that must build, ornament and sustain.
53THE EFFECT OF THE CONSERVATORY.
55It will give an undoubted boom to music all over the land; it will cause hundreds of preparatory institutions to be established, because only pupils who have attained a sufficiently high standard will be accepted into the National Conservatory. But from the National Conservatory will go forth what will be required of the respective pupils, and the preparatory schools will educate up to this standard so their pupils can take the examination.
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