Favorite Songs and Hymns For School and Home, page: 0012

450 Of The World's Best Songs And Hymns, With Lyrics & Sheet music for voice & piano.

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	12	FAVORITE SONGS FOR SCHOOL AND HOME.
	The old-time singing-master undoubtedly did good in his own day and generation, but he has wrought harm in ours, in having left the impression that a thorough practical knowledge of music can only be acquired by those who possess the gifts of musical genius. The error in this idea has, however, been fully demonstrated; and he who would know what can be accomplished when correct methods are applied to the teaching of music need only go where music is placed on the proper basis and is taught according to correct educational principles. Indeed, it is now con�clusively shown that the proportion of children who		can not, with proper instruction, learn to sing, Is n* greater than that of those who can not learn mathe�matics or language; and that the best teachers in other branches become, even with little knowledge of music, the most successful teachers of this subject, when once properly started. This fact clearly shows that the regular teachers, under proper supervision, will eventually become the teachers of music. It is true that special aptitude may give one pupil the ad�vantage over another in music as in other branches, but the fact remains that all can learn something of music, and nearly all can become proficient. Had
	HOME, SWEET HOME.		John Howard Payne.
	reading or mathematics been as superficially taught in the past as music, the results would have been no bet�ter. Happily, however, the value of a musical training is now recognized by our best educators, and music is being placed on a correct basis. Among large cities, the schools of Boston have already become justly famous for results in this direction, and other cities are turning their attention to this important matter. Three Verses.�We insert this best of songs as a sweet-voiced mother sang it, more than fifty years ago, by fireside and cradle. It is not Home, Sweet Home to us without the familiar second verse which, as a		friend says, « belongs there." The homeless author, John Howard Payne, needs nothing besides to rescue his name from oblivion. To have written this little song, which the world has taken to its heart because of its simplicity and tenderness, is infinitely more wor�thy a human being than to have wielded the sceptre of Augustus Caesar or of the first Napoleon! An old book lies before us, in which the song appears in five stanzas. It may have originally been so written, the author afterwards retaining but two of the favorite verses; at all events our mothers sang it thus when " Home, Sweet Home " was new, so many years ago.