Music in education
American trait of trying to reduce everything that seems complicated
to a great simplicity of system in order to learn it quickly and save
time’-but it worked. Music education came to the rescue and saved
the situation. The task is not completed yet. A great mass of musical
material has yet to be sifted; musical taste acquired by the present gene-
ration has yet to be filtered and refined, to be transmitted to genera-
tions to come. But there is no doubt that music is as much at home
now in the countries between the Atlantic and the Pacific as anywhere
else: ‘there lies its way, due west-then Westward Ho!’
And that is a happening of tremendous significance. Musical tradi-
tion is often thought of as a local monopoly of nations who had the
good fortune to develop it in the past. But the American experience
proves the opposite. It shows clearly that to music ‘the whole world is
only one city, no matter in which of the streets it happens to reside’.
Music can make its home in any country that opens its heart to it. Of
course it does not grow like flowers in the field as popular opinion
has it. Much work has to be done before it can flourish-work that is
a task of the enlightened music educator. And it stands to reason that
he can only profit from experiences of his colleagues in other lands,
by studying their working conditions, their methods, their failures
and successes. Like science, music education should be a common body
of knowledge available to all; like science it can become a general
blessing of mankind.
THE PRESENT STATE OF
MUSIC EDUCATION IN THE
ASIATIC CONTINENT: INDIA
by
V. RAGHAVAN, Professor, Madras Academy, IndiaI stand before you as the representative of an ancient country whose
art and philosophy travelled far in the past and whose influence over-
flowed the continent, a country which not only preserves a rich and