Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1880 — The pOwer of Music. [ARTICLE]

The pOwer of Music.

We may oollect engravings, writes Mr. Nettleship, in “Hellenics,” and photographs, and china, and make onrselves learned m the history of art; we may found museums and institutes, and spread casts of Venus and Apollo through the land; we may give thousands of pounds for pieces of clever vulgarity; but we shall not make English lire much more beautiful or Joyous, unless we can produce art which will educate the nation to see with its eyes and to hear with its ears the country in which it dwells and the history which it inherits. It is in music perhaps, that the outlook is least discotxraging. Here there Is a possibility of acting upon large masses with some effect; here social,distinctions are less felt; here, too, the English nature seems to show more aptitude and susceptibility. We can hardly hope to make our great towns beautiful, but it is not chimerical to look: forward to a time when they may each have-their ocheatra and chorus, and adequate provisions for hearing them. There Sao need to quarrel about the precise educational effect which modern music has pr may have. That it has aome such efffect will not be denied, except by those who wish to keep It to themselves, or by those who are irritated at the stupidity of !t2tta33S£'.S&3r& diffleutty of formulating it; is neither a proof Of its unreality nor an argument against utilizing it. Everybody who is at all Mfiteptikle to maaie knows that he is better for having it and worse for being, without iLI ho ako nrobablv knows that the composer whom the world has agreed to call great are, some or all of them, thoee to whose, music he most likes to listen; more than this, he need not be able to say, for a fact is not more of a fact* by being talked or written about. If it be one* Cully recognized that music has a great emotional power over a considersble of English people, the proper application of the power becomes a public duty, and it is only a question ot time to discover the beat ways of doing it