Music in education
It is difficult to procure musical equipment and choral scores, while
the music of modern foreign composers is obtainable only in small
quantities and at rare intervals.
That is why we are very pleased to see the formation of an Inter-
national Society for Music Education. It may be hoped that this organ-
ization will provide opportunities for direct contact between its mem-
bers, facilitate the exchange of views and experience, and promote the
free flow of music literature and publications.
We are convinced that this society will fulfil our common ideal of
bringing the nations closer together, for though we speak different
languages, there is one language that is comprehensible to us all-the
language of music.
[Tramlated from the French]
SCHOOL MUSIC EDUCATION
IN JAPAN
by
Tomojiro IKENOUCHI, Professor, Tokio UniversityThere are of course various aspects of music education, for music can
be taught individually or in groups, in the family, at a place of work
or in schools.
I must therefore explain that I am going to talk to you about music
education in schools, since schools play such a decisive part in the deve-
lopment of human personality, and school curricula may be regarded
as the basis of all other forms of education.
In Japan, as in other countries too, perhaps, music education used
to be considered not as a form of education with its own intrinsic
value, but as a sort of means, if I may use that term, of completing a
general education aimed at the formation of character. Since the war
our music education has followed the general line of reform in schools.