*See also State Normal Schools and Schools receiving special State Aid.

MUSIC.

The Future of Negro Music.

It is generally agreed that Negro music has a great future and as Mr. Will Marian Cook states, "Developed Negro Music has just begun in America. The coloured American is finding himself. He has thrown aside puerile imitations of the white man. He has learned that a thorough study of the masters gives knowledge of what is good and how to create. From the Russian he has learned to get his aspiration from within; that his inexhaustible wealth of folklore legends and songs furnish him with material for compositions that will establish a great school of music and enrich musical literature."

The works of Burleigh, Dett and others indicate that this development will be built upon Negro Folk Music, and as Mr. Dett states, "We have this wonderful store of folk music-the melodies of an enslaved people, who poured out their longings, their griefs and their aspirations in the one great, universal language. But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it, unless we treat it in such manner that it can be presented in choral form, in lyric and operatic works, in concertos and suites and salon music-unless our musical architects take the rough timber of Negro themes and fashion from its music which will prove that we, too, have national feelings and characteristics, as have the European peoples whose forms we have zealously followed for so long.

The Negroes' Creative Genius.

James Weldon Johnson in his "Book of American Negro Poetry" takes the ground that "the Negro is the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products." He sums up these creations under four heads, "The Uncle Remus Stories," "The Spirituals or Slave Songs," "The Cake Walk" and "Rag Time." Some years ago, Society in this country and Royalty abroad spent time in practicing the intricate steps of the cake walk. Paris pronounced it the poetry of motion. In the "Spirituals or Slave Songs," the Negroes have given America not only its only folk-songs; but a mass of noble music.

Mr. Johnson also says, "It is to be noted that whereas the chief characteristic of Ragtime is rhythm, the chief characteristic of the "spirituals" is melody In the riotous rhythms of Ragtime the Negro expressed his irrepressible buoyancy, his keen response to the sheer joy of living; in the "spirituals" he voiced his sense of beauty and his deep religious feeling."

Negro Folk Songs.

These songs more commonly called plantation melodies, originated with the Negroes of the South during the days of slavery.

Although there is connection in scale composition and in spontaneity with original African music, the imagery and sentiments expressed by the songs are the results of the conditions under which the slaves lived in America. Some of these folk songs represented the lighter side of the slave's life, as for example: "Heave away! heave away!

I'd rudder co't a yaller gal

Dan wuk foh Henry Clay.

or the following:

Heave away! yaller gal, I want to go."

"Ole Massa take dat new brown coat,

And hang it on de wall

Dat darkey take dat same ole coat,
And wear it to the ball.

Oh, don't you hear my tru lub sing?"