Music in Our Universities

The "Excelsior" that college boys (and girls) have sung about for almost three generations seems to have been placed on the banner of the Harvard Glee Club to far greater purpose than was ever dreamed of in the old days of our college memories. The recent concert here by the Harvard men bore out eloquently the praise given them in Boston and New York as one of the best male choruses in America. Now comes an invitation from the French Government to visit France and give several concerts there, with a further bait added to this honor in the statement that some of the leading French composers, Satie, Ravel and Auric, have signified their willingness to write special compositions for the Harvard singers.

The invitation has not yet been accepted, but it shows what attention these college men, trained by Dr. Archibald T. Davison have gained. But what their fine conductor has accomplished could never have been put through, had not the University authorities stood behind his endeavor to build the Glee Club according to such a high musical standard.

This proves, rather more dramatically than anything else that has happened along these lines, that music, long frowned upon by educators as being a subject of doubtful academic value, is at last finding ready champions even in the universities. Of course this could only be achieved after such pioneers as Edward MacDowell and others literally died of broken hearts because of the hopelessness of their cause. Stubbornness, born of an innate intellectual complacency, is one of the hall-marks of the typical college professor, and it takes a mighty jolt to wake him into a state where he can see beyond the rim of his text books.

Take the case of Dr. J. Varley Roberis, who wanted music to be entered as a regular study in Oxford University Naturally he was met with strenuous opposition, but finally he won, and now from his observations extending over thirty years he records the remarkable fact that, although only ten percent of the great student body has been addicted to music study at the university, seventy five percent of the scholarship honors of the entire university have been won by this ten percent group!

Right here near at home, at the University of Illinois, under Lawrence Erb, music credits are beginning to find their academic level. Much of the absurd prejudice against music in our universities has been due to impractical plans offered by incompetents. With the new order of progressive music educators, invading our educational system from the public schools to our higher university music is at last winning its place as a study that rounds out an otherwise incomplete educative scheme.