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The National Music of America. 43
ing by ear. Singing from printed music was soon called " the new way," singing by rote "the old way," and many were the arguments pro and con regarding these two ways. Here are some of the written objections to the new system :
" 1 st, it is a new way — an unknown tongue. 2nd, it is not so melodious as the old way. 3rd, there are so many tunes that nobody can ever learn them. 4th, the new way makes disturbance in churches, grieves good men, exasperates them and causes them to behave disorderly. 5th, it is popish. 6th, it will introduce instruments. 7th, the names of the notes are blasphemous. 8th, it is needless, the old way being good enough. 9th, it requires too much time to learn it. 10th, it makes the young disorderly."
But there were reverend men of culture then existing, who would not give way to the clamour, and Symmes, Thacher, Walter, Dwight, Danforth, Mather, Stoddard, and a host of other divines, arose in favour of the "new way," fighting for musical progress as the Rev. John Cotton had done a century before (1647). A writer in the New Eng- |
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