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CHAPTER II. |
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The Beginning of American Music — Difference between Pilgrims and Puritans — A Popular Error — The Bay Psalm-book — Disputes in the Church about Singing — The " Old Way " versus the " New Way " — Subsequent Psalm and Sacred Collections — Prejudice against the Organ — Establishment of Choirs.
American music was at first planted in a very sterile soil; both Pilgrims and Puritans were opposed to the development of the musical art, yet, by an irony of fate, their psalm-singing became the cradle which cherished the music of America. At the outset we must correct an error which has crept into almost every history of this subject ; the Pilgrims were not Puritans.1 Plymouth was settled by Pilgrims, Boston by Puritans.
1 See " Story of the Pilgrim Fathers," Arber, pp. 246 and 355, and " The Pilgrim Republic," Goodwin, pp. 1-13, 324, etc.
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