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Tlie National Music of America. 287
time could carry out such a stupendous programme, but the academy taught twenty-two hundred pupils in the first two years, a very good proof of the public interest in music in New England. In 1837 the academy founded an orchestra, but it now found that it was going too far in its schemes to retain full pecuniary support from the public. It nevertheless struggled on until 1847, when it gave up the ghost. It had done much in the general field of music ; at one time it was recognised as the chief authority of the country in this branch of art, and letters from almost every State in the Union, to "The Academy of Music," prove that Boston was a musical centre even in the first half of the nineteenth century. But the greatest good in connection with the academy was the impetus which such of its promoters as George J. Webb, William C. Woodbridge, and Lowell Mason gave to the teaching of music in the public schools. The planting of this seed was one of |
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