Great reforms are the product of great ideas; and great songs are the living embodiment of these ideas. Great music, into which great men have breathed their inmost souls, calls forth lofty thoughts and impulses, and often renews the spirit of the times. Music is the most fluid, subtile, and sympathetic of all arts. It is a bit of heaven upon earth, breathing of life and its possibilities, and immortality and its joys. Music, therefore, must become an integral part of our common, our atmospheric education. It must be made the people's possession, not alone a source of enjoyment and cultivation, but a mighty means for a mighty end-the upbuilding and strengthening of this great American nation. Music has ever been a potent agent in civilization. We Americans are a conglomerate people, half brothers of the world, with something good and bad of every land, and we need music more than any other nation. We need some ever present, far reaching, potent influence, which shall weld into one mighty whole these different elements of our national character, subdue our self assertion, round off the sharp corners, and efface our glaring inconsistencies; that shall sweeten the bitterness engendered by the conflict of opinion, temper party strife, and pervade the masses; bringing out the genial humanity of each individual, and freeing him from the thralldom of party, creed, or fashion—an influence that shall give us a proper conception of the meaning of the word freedom; that shall teach us that freedom is not license, but a source of action governed by certain fixed laws; that the highest freedom, and that which should be the real motive for the assertion of our individuality, takes cognizance of the laws of divine order and unity; that,

"True freedom is to share

All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free."

But this very spirit of freedom must be properly restrained, or it will rush to its own destruction. It must be controlled by some gentler, more harmonious, more humanizing agency, which shall pervade the whole mass of the people

with a beautiful enthusiasm, and a deep reverence for something far above themselves-something beautiful and pure, which will waken the sleeping ideality in their souls, and lift them above the dead level of daily life and toil. Legal enactment or stern prohibition cannot exert this power. It must be something which shall touch that part of human nature from which the actions spring; something which shall put into the soul higher motives and broader sympathies. What can do all this, and do it so effectually, as music? What can so quickly magnetize a people into harmony of thought and action as this divine art?

The more prosaic and sordid a man's life and daily occupation, the more he needs the outlooks and leadings to a higher life. The more he dwells among things, the greater his need of contact with a spirit greater than mere things; the material life must touch the immaterial; the body must have an indwelling soul with aspirations and affinities, with a life above and beyond the routine of everyday life. The solution of our labor problems will speedily be reached when we come to realize that the need of the millions of toilers in our land is soul expansion, and the ennobling, revivifying influence of pure joy. When these people learn to look for a larger, freer life, not so much in their toil, or party, or creed (for these all have their limitations), but in themselves, in that part of their being which can rise above mere circumstances and surroundings, and live and enjoy, then will they become more happy and contented. They need to taste this better, broader life; and has not this life come to thousands of us, and to thousands of others, while listening to music, or while joining our voices in some thrilling chorus, that seemed to make the very heavens open and to give us a glimpse of the divine? We simply must look to music to help us in this good work of providing soul expansion for the masses; it is an appeal to which we are all open; in music we can forget ourselves; we can blend into good fellowship and friendship when we listen or sing together; when our emotions are permitted to express themselves in their own language, and our baser natures are silenced.

We believe that when the genius of song crowns the gospel of work there will be fewer strikes, the grimy faces will be less haggard, the tense muscles will lose their rigidity; under the unconscious influence of beauty, harmony, and rhythm, labor will be more cheerfully, more faithfully performed.

The influence of music in our schools at this time supports our arguments and presages much for the future. Wherever music is a part of the regular curriculum the culture and influence of that school are being uplifted. Coercive discipline is superseded by happy self control. The pupils are acquiring elasticity of spirit, joy in harmonious co-operation, in the blending of life with life; a rhythmical sense of order, a quickening of the ear and senses, a new and deeper respect for the rights of others, and a loftier patriotism. We of older growth may not be as amenable to such influences as the children, but in so far as we place ourselves within the reach of this mighty agent shall we be benefited and helped.

After all, freedom, to the average American, is not a reality, but a myth. We are so enterprising, so unceasing in our pursuit of the means of living, that we have no time to live. We are veritable slaves to business, and to a barren theory of discipline, discipline, unrelenting discipline. We still cling to the old Puritanic idea of self repression, and are afraid to give ourselves up to the happy instincts of our natures. The paths of business, fashion, intellectual advancement, and even religion are clearly mapped out for us, and woe unto him who dares to leave the beaten track!

We lack the knowledge of the art of living; we lack geniality; we do not even know the true meaning of the words. Living, to many, is a synonym for existence, while geniality is a part of some forgotten language. This last word comes from the same root as the word genius, and we all know that genius is a spontaneous thing, which

"Soars-it does not need to climb

Upon God given wings to heights sublime;"

that it contributes to and sympathizes with enjoyment, excites pleasure, and reconciles it with loyalty to conscience, and with universal, holy, and disinterested purposes. If our civilization

endures or progresses, this element must enter more largely into our national character. We must live more, think more, feel more. The garb of business, the stamp of party or profession, must be laid aside, and our lives must become more genial, more responsive to the demands of our higher natures.

"So far as it is a matter of culture, it is through art that this genial era must be ushered in, and music offers itself as the most available, the most popular, the most influential, of all the fine arts. It possesses the nature and ability to unite and blend and harmonize all who may come within its sphere.

"It nourishes and feels the hidden springs of hope, love, and faith; renews the old convictions of life's springtime-that the world is ruled by love, that God is good, and that beauty is a divine end of life.

"It floods out of sight the unsightly, muddy grounds of life's petty, anxious, doubting moments, and makes immortality a present fact, lived in and realized. It locks the door against the outer world of discords, contradictions, importunities, beneath the notice of a soul so richly occupied; lets fate knock at the door-fate and the pursuing furies-and even welcomes them, and turns them into gracious goddesses, Eumenides! When man has tasted of that higher life, and has given himself up to it, at least for a time, until he has become acclimated to it, then man, no matter what may be his party or creed, will belong to the harmonic and anointed bodyguard of peace, fraternity, and good will. His instincts have all caught the rhythm of that holy march, and the good genius leads. Somehow the smallest fiber, the most infinitesimal atoms of his being, are magnetized and attracted to the pole star of unity; he has grown attuned to the believing mood, just as the body of a violin or the walls of a concert room become gradually seasoned into smooth vibration."

When the individual men and women who make up this nation have finally grown attuned to this believing, loving mood which leads to the realization of the brotherhood of man in its highest phases, I am certain that thoughtful and studious men, observing and understanding the cause and effect, will say that much of this result is due to the influence of music upon our lives, and consequently upon the life of the nation.

AMERICAN ART.

BY FRANK EDWIN ELWELL.

[Frank Edwin Elwell, sculptor; born June 15, 1858, in Concord, Mass.; educated in sculpture in the United States under Daniel Chester French and in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and under Jean Alexandre Falguiere, member of the Institute of France; he enjoys the distinction of being the first American sculptor that modeled a statue in America which was erected in Europe; among other honors conferred upon him are two gold medals received from the Art club of Philadelphia, a medal received at the World's Columbian exposition, and one awarded by the king of Belgium for his studies in architecture; his best known works include a monument at Edam, Holland, Death of Strength, bust of Lord Provost of Aberdeen at Aberdeen, Awakening of Egypt, a statue in Paris, the equestrian statue of General Hancock at Gettysburg, the monument to Edwin Booth at Cambridge, Mass., the two fountains Ceres and Kronos at the Pan-American exposition, Buffalo, the statue of Dickens and Little Nell in Fairmount park, Philadelphia; the statue entitled New Life in Lowell cemetery, Lowell, Mass., the statue entitled Intelligence and busts of Levi P. Morton, and Garret A. Hobart in the senate chamber at Washington; he is the editor and publisher of The Thinker and from 1902-1905 curator of the department of Ancient and Modern Statuary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city.]

There are some very excellent reasons why American art has hung fire so long, while in other countries there has been some advancement; although, looking squarely at this matter, one is forced to conclude that art has not grown to any appreciable extent, except in certain rare individual cases, since the Renaissance. The increased general demand for popular education, the cheapening of life and its necessities, the general lack of adoration for the art of religion, has all combined to the dethronement of art, as a mighty influence in human life.

Ancient art was coupled with barbaric splendor. One may fancy that it was art itself that made this ancient splendor possible. Certain we are that all the existing records are left to us in some artistic form, whether in ruined temples, monuments, or the hand written books of the middle ages.

It will be well for us, as Americans, to remember that the whole northern portion of our country was settled by, or dominated by, the Puritan influence of the Plymouth colony. The making of any graven image of anything on earth, in the heavens, or under the earth, was regarded with austerity becoming the established tenets of their new found religion.