Appe;rdixesand effectively control, their music educational activities, through their vir-
tually autonomous professional organization.
Thus, effective pursuit of any one of these three organizational objectives-
interest, protection and development-may result in partial or virtual control
of an activity. This is so, because the media of mass communication are, of
necessity, dominated by a group and so give more and more power to groups
that use them, and less and less to individuals and masses of populations.
Whether in a monarchy or a republic, a democracy or a dictatorship, the
group organized for interest, protection or development, has come into its
own with the aid of these technological innovations! To the extent that a
group integrates all three, it almost inevitably becomes a control group, or,
as we say in the United States of America, more politely, a ‘pressure’ group.
The political reality of our day is not, then, the individual or the masses of
humanity of the romantic era, but the organized group. There is not a
legislature, parliament or bureau that cannot brush off any individual, dis-
regard or bear down upon large masses of populations, but must listen
respectfully to a welI-organized pressure group.
You have received copies of the statutes of a proposed international society
for music education, together with certain temporary provisions that will
enable you most expeditiously to vote it into existence and to carry it over
an interim period until such time as a first general assembly can be called
that will put it into operation upon a democratically organized basis.
Not for a moment would I have you think of this proposed organization
as a control or a pressure group. Probably, no young international organi-
zation should dream of ever doing any controlling or protecting whatever.
Rather, I recommend it to you as primarily an interest group. We have much
to learn from each other: how a little African boy acquires skill in ritual
drumming; how the player of the sitar creates while he re-creates a raga;
how best to handle pre-schoolchildren; how to secure continuity from a
good secondary school education in music into the adult life of an average
working man or woman.
In these statutes you will observe, however, that provision is made for the
setting up of an international institute for music education, when funds for
its operation may be obtained. This foreshadows in addition a development
function for the society. There is also provision for an international journal
of music education-something long overdue in this otherwise well publi-
cized world.
Perhaps I may be pardoned for looking farther into the future of this
possible child of ours.
You will note that the statutes provide for three standing committees:
(1) for music in general education; (2) for education of the professional
musician; (3) for education of the scholar or musicologist. This union of
the three main categories of music education is purposeful and, those of us
who framed the document believe, conforms best to reality and is in the best
interest of all.