Favorite Songs and Hymns For School and Home, page: 0286

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

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	Besides indifference there is no doubt that music has bad to suffer much from the lofty contempt with which she and her votaries have been treated by those who professed to have a claim to distinction in other walks. True, since the days of that offensive and priggish noble�man, Lord Chesterfield, things have greatly changed. Eton, Harrow, Rugby�all the great schools�have now their masters for music on the same footing as the other instructors. Go into the officers' quarter in bar�racks, and you will find pianofortes, violins and violon�cellos, and lying about there will be good music. Amateur societies flourish, which bring rich and poor together. The Duke of Edinburg told me that he had a complete string quartet among the officers on his ship�all these things point a great reaction in the feelings of the professional classes towards music. But much of the old leaven remains, and one of the most	objectionable developments is a curious affectation of ignorance on the part of many men of position in the political and scientific world, as if music were too trivial a matter for their lofty intellects to take notice of. At any great meeting on the subject of music, archbishops, judges, politicians, financiers�each one who rises to speak�will deprecate any knowledge of music with a smug satisfaction, like a man disowning poor relations. I am not here to explain why music should be cultivated, nor to apologize to superior-minded persons for its exist�ence, nor to speak humbly and with bated breath of its merits; but I claim for it boldly and proudly its place amongst the great things and the great influences in the world; and can but express pity for those ignorant and stupid enough to deny its importance in the world and in history, and to look upon it as a mere family pastime fit only for women and children.�Arthur Sullivan.
	Martini.