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ublic and private music instructionthroughout the United States dependson the support of legislators, school ad-ministrators, school board members andultimately the American public. Musi-cians and music lovers have a long his-tory of promoting the benefits of musicstudy. During the past 150 years, thestudy of music has been credited with benefiting the individual,the community and the nation in a variety of ways, includingimproving religious services; maintaining a person’s physical,emotional and intellectual well-being; providing good social andmoral influence; encouraging patriotism; benefiting internationalrelations; balancing the negative side effects of scientific andtechnological progress; and enhancing spatial and abstractreasoning skills. The passionate support of music through thepast century and a half will fascinate and inspire present-daymusic lovers.
Music in Colonial America
Colonial American leaders, especially those of the Puritanfaith, did not encourage the cultivation of music unless forstrictly religious purposes. Because of its inherent power to givepleasure, music (especially secular music) was regarded as myste-rious and faintly evil. According to James Keene, “the use of in-struments was considered the work of the devil until the earlyyears of the nineteenth century.... At no time were the Puritansofficially enthusiastic about any form of music other than psalmsinging.”
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Unfortunately, because of a lack of any musical in-struction, the musical result achieved by church singers was, inthe words of one writer, “hopelessly forlorn, not only from theconfused versifications of the Psalms which were used, but fromthe mournful monotony of the few known tunes and the hor-rible manner in which these tunes were sung.”
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An awareness of the need for music instruction developed. It was around 1720that America’s first singing classes were formed. These classeswere in no way connected with the public school curriculum butwere simply social gatherings of several members of a churchcongregation to learn the most fundamental rules of music.During the remainder of the eighteenth century, music slowlygained acceptance in the New World. What had previously beenstrictly limited to the singing of psalms was now gradually ex-panding to include the playing of the organ in church and the
 Advocating Music Study in the United States:
 A Colorful History with Lessons for Today’s Arts Supporters
 byConnie Arrau Sturm
Connie Arrau Sturm coordinates the undergraduate and  graduate piano pedagogy programs at West Virginia Universityin Morgantown. A former WVMTA president, Sturm serves as faculty adviser for the WVU Student Chapter of MTNA, whichwon the 1997 Chapter of the Year award.
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“During the past150 years, the study of music has been credited with benefiting the individual, the community and the nation in avariety of ways…” 
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singing of anthems, choral music and simple secular songs. Suchwas the atmosphere in Boston in 1836 when Lowell Mason andthe Boston Academy of Music (which he co-founded) submitteda petition to the Boston School Committee calling for the intro-duction of vocal music instruction in the public schools. TheSchool Committee appointed a special committee to investigateand report on the desirability of adding music to the publicschool curriculum. Their 1837 report recommended the adop-tion of public school music based on three justifications—theintellectual, moral and physical development of students. Thisreport suggested “a concordance between certain sounds and cer-tain trains of moral feeling”
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and concluded that music could en-hance what they referred to as “exercises of devotion.”
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Thus, inaddition to individual learning, the first public school music pro-gram was justified in part as an asset to moral and religious de-velopment, which were very important community values duringthis period. Although the Boston city council did not appropri-ate funds for this experiment, the Hawes School was agreeable toMason’s offer to teach music without pay for one year to seewhat results could be produced. Mason’s experiment was quitesuccessful; in 1838, the school adopted his plans for initiatingmusic instruction in the public school curriculum. In a letter tothe mayor of Boston, Hawes School officials reported on stu-dents’ musical achievements and other benefits of music instruc-tion. After noting some improvements in singing, they added,“Of the great moral effect of music, there can be no question....It excites the listless, and calms the turbulent and uneasy.”
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In
 Education in the United States: An Interpretive History
, Churchand Sedlak explain that schoolmen of this period often evaluatedsubject matter “in terms of its usefulness for moral inculcation...and openly sought to make children pliable to the wishes of theteachers.”
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Thus, in addition to achievements in singing, moraland character development played an important part in the ac-ceptance of music as part of the public school curriculum.
Horace Mann
In 1844, shortly after the Boston experiment, Horace Mannspoke out in favor of instituting vocal music programs in all thepublic schools. In his seventh annual report to the MassachusettsBoard of Education, this famous educational reformer claimedthat there were four main reasons music should be taught inpublic schools:
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Studying music was practical and democratic; every child wasequipped with ears and a voice and was able to sing and derivepleasure from singing.
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Singing was good for a person’s mental and physical health.Singing could make a person happy and carefree and at thesame time could exercise the lungs, thereby helping to preventconsumption (tuberculosis).
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Since musical harmony was based on mathematical relationships,studying music scientifically (like studying mathematics) couldtrain the intellect.
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Singing could be a good social and moral influence; accord-ingto Mann, music could calm what he called “boisterous andriotous passions.”
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Since music could transcend all socialclass, ethnic and religious differences, it could help promotepeace, hope and orderliness by softening and refining the na-tional character.Furthering the Boston School Committee’s justifications formusic, Mann preached that music could be used to overcome re-ligious differences and to create a unity that extended beyond thecommunity (one that brought together people of different socialclasses and ethnic groups). Mann also claimed that in additionto benefiting society, music study benefited individuals byimproving their emotional and physical health and their intel-lectual powers. Clearly, music educators had their work cutout for them!
Nineteenth Century Progress
In many American cities, the growth and expansion of musicstudy seemed to parallel a corresponding improvement in thequality of public performances. European immigrants, both per-formers and concert goers, often contributed a great deal to themusical life of the community. For example, the Virginia“Gesangeverein,” which was organized in 1852, was the firstsecular singing society in the city of Richmond. It not only per-formed operas and choral repertoire, but also inspired the forma-tion of other musical groups including the Mozart Society, theWednesday Club and the Sabbath Glee Club. Furthermore, theprestigious Lefebvre’s School, which reportedly offered the finestmusic instruction in Richmond, hired several German musiciansfor its teaching faculty.
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During the next several decades, America experienced internaltrouble and turmoil that culminated in the Civil War. After thewar, the status of music seemed to have lost ground in the eyesof the educators of the time. In an article presented to the Na-tional Educational Association (NEA) in 1870, one educator de-scribed what he considered to be the value of music as an educa-tional tool. He stated that music’s power as an educational force“is chiefly reached by an alliance with poetry.”
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To suggest as hedid that the value of music lies mainly in its text was surely a stepbackward.During the 1880s, support and enthusiasm for school musicprograms were again on the rise. Music educators were agreeingamongst themselves and developing sound educational philoso-phies for their art. At the NEA meeting in 1884, a Departmentof Music Education was formed. At its first meeting, thepresident’s address set forth what were generally considered to beeducational values that could be derived from studying music. Ina very articulate speech, President Daniel Hagar (1885) outlinedthree important goals of education—intellectual development,social/moral development and physical development—and ex-plained how studying music could further each of these goals. Indiscussing intellectual development, Hagar stressed what hecalled mental discipline, “a discipline which will enable its pos-sessor to gather knowledge readily in any desired field and toperform with success the various...duties of life.”
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Hagar felt thatmusic could make a valuable contribution to the development of mental discipline by exercising the perceptive faculties, the facul-ties of understanding and reasoning, memory and imagination.
 
The second educational goal that Hagar discussed was social andmoral development. He argued that any musical group canbring people together and encourage them to relate to one an-other in the spirit of friendly cooperation. Hagar also pointedout that music provides an excellent emotional outlet. Manypeople experience a certain joy of living through music and ex-pressive arts, often realizing a special aesthetic or spiritual plea-sure. The final educational goal he addressed was physical devel-opment. Singing is a physical activity and as such does exerciseparts of the body; namely, it helps one develop and regulatebreath control. In addition to discussing the three areas of educa-tional growth, Hagar also stressed that the best results in a musicprogram could only be achieved if music was considered a legiti-mate study. He added that if music study is limited to “the sing-ing of a few songs by way of recreation, it fails to achieve the bestintellectual results, as much as would instruction in arithmetic orgrammar, or any other study, if limited to its simplest rudi-ments.”
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Many of Hagar’s claims are reminiscent of those of hispredecessor, Horace Mann. Hagar did not say anything new, buthe presented what many people had probably suspected for sometime in a more realistic and sensible way.Once music educators finally banded together and set forthsome concrete goals, they were able to initiate and improveschool music programs at an amazing rate. In 1886, the firstgraded series of music textbooks was published, training classesand workshops for teachers were held, and well-structured musicprograms began to emerge. At the NEA meeting in 1889, a spe-cial report was presented to the music department documentingsignificant progress “both in the number of places where music istaught and the better support which is given to the subject inthose schools where it is taught.”
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The optimism of the time wasexpressed forcefully in a speech to the NEA music departmentwhere the speaker said that he perceived at the present time “theliveliest promise of a positive and powerful movement in favor of music among the people of this continent.”
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One of the mainreasons this music campaign was so successful was that it wasbased on an acceptable ideology. That ideology suggested thatthe study of music contributed as much or more than other sub- jects to very basic and fundamental goals rather than to superflu-ous or specialized talents; therefore, its place in the public schoolcurriculum was justified. This emphasis on basic and fundamen-tal goals was supported with the publishing of a major report in1893 by the so-called Committee of Ten in the NEA. It con-cluded that education should be directed toward training thepowers of observation, memory, expression and reasoning. Oncethe NEA set forth these principles of education, music educatorscould easily respond that music could make its contribution ineach of those areas; in fact, Hagar’s speech on the benefits of mu-sic instruction addressed almost word for word these specificeducational goals.
The Impact of Recordings
Around the turn of the century, some very important develop-ments that greatly affected music programs in the schools beganto take place. The ability to reproduce sound was being perfectedin the forms of the radio and the phonograph. This revolution-ized school music teaching because for the first time, manypeople could hear music that was beyond their immediate abilityto produce, and for the first time, many students were able tohear great music from all over the world—music that includednot only art songs, choruses and operas but nearly the entire rep-ertoire of instrumental music. This single fact greatly contributedto the launching of instrumental music programs in the schools.High school orchestras became very popular almost overnight.According to one source, “in 1911, there were only a scant half dozen; in 1924 there were hundreds of them all over the coun-try.”
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Once music educators succeeded in cataloging all this newlyfound repertoire by graded levels of difficulty according to astudent’s intellectual and musical development, music apprecia-tion courses were born. These courses were founded on a some-what different educational philosophy than their performingcounterparts. Music appreciation courses were able to justifytheir introduction into the school curriculum by emphasizingthat they could help the student develop the ability to make in-telligent value judgments; they encouraged the student to dis-criminate, compare and judge. The goals of these courses were tohelp refine the students’ critical ability so they could become in-telligent consumers of the musical arts of the future as well asthose surrounding them in their everyday lives.
Nationalism
At the same time that high school orchestras and music appre-ciation courses were being created, the musical world was experi-encing a strong movement towards nationalism. With the adventof the radio and the phonograph, it became increasingly appar-ent that Americans were lagging far behind almost all Europeansin terms of music. The Americans, not willing to be outdone byforeigners, began trying very hard to establish a musical environ-ment in every home and community in order to encourage thedevelopment of a national type of music. Music educators werequick to delegate some of this responsibility to the schools. Be-ginning with World War I, school music programs focused onpatriotism. Patriotic music was supposed to inspire all Americansto want to fight for their country. Singing, playing and listeningto such music was supposed to renew one’s strength, bravery andcourage. So used, music could claim an invaluable contributionto the school’s duty of socializing young Americans. Accordingto Edward Bailey Birge, “the reacting effect was the unqualifiedacceptance of music as a major subject on the part of both schoolauthorities and the tax payers of the nation.”
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In addition to the rise of national music, music on a localcommunity level became important. During the early decades of this century, American folk songs and ballads became increas-ingly familiar. Community singing groups enjoyed great popu-larity, and the schools can be credited with playing a central rolein all this musical activity. In addition to the regular music cur-riculum, the school was used for many extracurricular singingclubs. During the 1920s, musical activity was regarded as an in-tegral part of the school. According to educators of the time, mu-sic more than justified its place in the school by encouraging
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