cer

might have lived at Rome under the placid reign of Domitian, tainly without being disturbed by the clamours of a vulgar newsboy, bawling over the Palatine the latest stages of a ministerial crisis, and breaking in on his preoccupation as he put together some tuneful trifle on a Greek subject, or prepared for public recitation a flattering elegy on Cæsar's pet bear.

I have confined my observations to the modern French School of Poetry, because I find there the philosophy of a widespread movement put forward in the most frank and lucid form. But, in fact, the features which this school presents are repeated with variations in the contemporary literature of every country in Europe. For the moment, at least, life in poetry is no longer looked for in that perfect balance between the universal and individual elements which is the essence of all classical art. The aim of the poet is not now to create the natural in the sphere of the ideal, the image of

Nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.

The essence of Life in Poetry, and in all the arts according to the new philosophy, 'is Novelty. And whence are the sources of this new life to be derived? The answer is that each of the arts is to borrow some principle from the others; the painter aims at effects which have hitherto been attempted only by poetry; the poet devotes his efforts to imitate in words ideas which are more naturally expressed by means of forms and colours, or indefinable emotions like those which are aroused by the notes of music; the musician tries to combine with the resources of his own art the beauties peculiar to poetry and painting. I do not deny that, when these experiments are made by men of genius, the artistic result produced is often striking, and for a time even pleasurable. But when it is claimed by the pioneers of the new movement by the brotherhoods, the societies, the coteries, which seek by organised efforts to impose the new doctrines on the taste of a bewildered world-that this confusion of the boundaries of art is the beginning of a fresh and vigorous outburst of artistic life, experience says No! The things that are being attempted are as old as civilised society. The poet-musician who endeavours to create a new kind of pleasure, by combining on the stage the principles of poetry, painting, and music, is only doing what was done two thousand years ago by Agathon and the late Attic dramatists. The poet who exalts the element of painting inherent in his art above the principle of action is following the example of Apollonius Rhodius. The poet who tries to attract attention to himself by an ideal representation of extravagant and unnatural passion is modelling himself upon Seneca. And Agathon, and Apollonius Rhodius, and Seneca are all poets of decadent ages.

Now, if we are living in an age of poetical decadence, it is a very

serious matter, and questions arise which urgently demand an answer. Is this decadence confined to the genius and methods of the poets themselves? or does it extend to the taste of that portion of society which the poets are specially anxious to please? or does it, as Herr Nordau thinks, imply a failure of the sources of life in the nation at large? These are problems of the profoundest interest, and I shall attempt to deal with them in the lecture with which I propose to conclude this series-namely, on the relations that exist between the Life of Poetry and the Life of the People.

W. J. COURTHOPE.

THE TEACHING OF MUSIC IN SCHOOLS

It is now close upon sixty years since John Curwen, then an unknown Congregational minister, evolved a system of musical notation which he afterwards delighted to describe as easy, cheap, and true.' He had been trying to teach music by ear' in his own Sunday school, but found that the attempt meant nothing more than learning by heart, by a tiresome process of iteration, a few pieces of music, just as a parrot might learn certain phrases of melody on hearing them repeated time after time. To teach the people to read music as they read their newspapers, to make musical performance easy of attainment this was Mr. Curwen's object, and the question of the means whereby it might be realised soon became the all-engrossing subject of his thoughts. That the ordinary staff notation-the musical notation of the world-could not be made to serve the desired end was, as he declared, evident from the results obtained by it. There were few good readers of music, and, so far as Mr. Curwen could see, there was no method by which good readers could be formed. What was needed was a notation which a child might understand—a notation from which a child might sing with at least as much ease as he read his school primer.

Some time before this, a certain Miss Glover of Norwich had been experimenting with a notation which helped to remove something of the mystery of lines and spaces and sharps and flats by a substitution for the ordinary pitch names of the old Italian Sol-fa syllables Do, Re, Mi, &c. Mr. Curwen saw at once that here was the germ of the thing he had been looking for; and setting himself to work on the erude idea, it was not long before he had evolved the Tonic Sol-fa notation, practically as we now know it.

Lectures and literature followed quickly upon the invention, and the system was rapidly propagated among the people. Mr. Curwen had the instincts of the true philanthropist. He did not address himself to the musical profession-that, indeed, would have been a futile proceeding. He addressed himself to the clergy, to day school and Sunday school teachers, to temperance and mission workers, to amateur choirmasters, and the like. He was able to show by actual demonstration that his notation was easy enough for the meanest

comprehension, and he encouraged those who had themselves learned to sing by it to start and instruct others. The early teachers of the Sol-fa method and notation were indeed a very different set of men from those who now walk in their footsteps. They were mostly amateurs who, having read the Curwen literature and caught the Curwen enthusiasm, set up their 'modulators' in remote villages and out-of-the-way corners untouched by the professional; and thus, even while the professional was declaring the absolute impossibility of teaching the people to sing from a combination of letters and dashes and punctuation marks, the people were actually showing that the thing had been done.

Of course, the system met with plenty of ridicule and abuse. It was natural that the profession should not give a kindly welcome to a notation which threatened to disestablish the staff. But the followers of Mr. Curwen fought their way manfully, step by step, and at length they succeeded in gaining the official recognition at which they had aimed. In 1869, the Committee of Council on Education, finding that the system was already being largely taught in the schools, put it on an equal footing with the staff. The Committee expressed no opinion upon the merits of the new notation; they merely recognised it as having been adopted on a sufficient scale to justify official recognition. Tonic Sol-fa was thus accepted upon the same conditions as the staff-namely, that one shilling and fourpence per pass was to be granted, provided the inspector reported that the children were systematically taught.

Fourteen thousand schools under Government inspection were thus thrown open to the new-notationists. They went to work with immense enthusiasm; and whereas, previous to the recognition of Sol-fa, only one school out of all those under inspection had earned the music grant, in the year ending March 1871 the number had risen to forty-three. Since that time the history of Sol-fa in the schools has been a record of continual, nay, of phenomenal progress. In 1872, the London School Board adopted the system, and that step was soon followed by all the leading Boards in England and Scotland. Most of the Boards have appointed visiting masters, so that the regular school staff are left free for the other duties of their office. What is being done is easily and accurately learned from the statistics which are carefully prepared by the Education Department. The latest official returns of the Department show an increase of children under Tonic Sol-fa instruction in the elementary schools of 187,080 for the year, while those being taught by staff notation have increased by the small number of 7,974. For singing' by ear' a decrease of 74,854 is reported. In 1896, the number of children being taught the Tonic Sol-fa in schools under the English and Scotch Departments was 3,908,642, nearly six times as many as in 1883; while of all those taught to sing by note, 88.8 per cent. in England and Wales, and 95.3

per cent. in Scotland earned the grant for Tonic Sol-fa. Last year the large sum of 206,000l. was given in grants for music to something like four and a quarter million pupils in elementary State-aided schools in England alone (Scotland and Ireland being left out of count), and the larger proportion of this sum was gained by means of the letter notation.

All this teaching from Sol-fa it is now proposed-or at least it has been proposed to turn into another channel. It is proposed, and the proposal has been pressed upon the Government by an influential deputation of musicians, that the teaching of the staff notation should be made compulsory in the schools. The agitation had its origin at a Conference of the Incorporated Society of Musicians—a thoroughly representative body of the profession-held at Cardiff in January last. Various speakers at that Conference dwelt upon the imperfections of the Sol-fa notation, especially in so far as it was not the universal notation-the notation in which the great bulk of the literature of music is written; and in the end a resolution was unanimously agreed to that in the interests of music in this country it is most desirable that the recommendation which the Education Department has already issued to the effect that singing should be taught from the staff notation should be rendered compulsory in the higher standards.' Since this resolution was passed, the matter has been warmly debated throughout the country, and will, no doubt, continue to be debated until some official pronouncement has been made upon it. In the meantime it may be well to look at the question in its various bearings and see for ourselves what really is to be said for and against the suggested change.

That the ordinary staff notation should be taught at some stage of the school curriculum is generally admitted. Even the Sol-faists themselves admit this. It is true there are a few fanatics in the Sol-fa ranks who declare that their notation is sufficient for all requirements, and that any concessions made in favour of the staff are a confession of weakness which must not be encouraged. But men of this type are recognised by their fellow-propagandists as hopelessly out of touch with the needs of the time. They are essentially 'old school' men who, having been trained in the earlier days of Sol-fa' storm and stress,' cannot be brought to see that the two notations are not necessarily antagonistic-that they should run abreast, the one making the complement, the helpmate of the other.

But whether the Sol-faists recognise it or not, the claims of the staff notation as a finish off to the day-school training in music are indisputable. Whatever results the followers of Mr. Curwen may have achieved by means of their notation-and they have achieved magnificent results within certain limits-there is no getting over the fact that the staff is the recognised notation of the musical world, whereas the letter notation is, after all, the notation of only a