PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON NATIONAL MUSIC.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 20 September 1880, Page 2

PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON NATIONAL MUSIC.

Professor Blackie, in a letter on actional music, says :-r— . . . . With regard to th.a virtu,e of music as an educationa} engine of the highest, potency, intelligent person .ean enter--a moment's doubt, A witty Frefichn>ap said " Make you the laws of the no© jhake the songs of the

people," which is just to say i n w antithetic phrase that there is no m powerful, influence to mould the thoK and to stir the heart of a peonle tt national song. The same doctrine Safe down forcibly, and at considerable lenitl by the wise Greeks, as anyone may rea d m the political discourses of Plato Aristotle—names which will certainl retain their august authority in the realm of reason and the atmosphere of naturj long after men shall have forgotten th various forms of shallow sensationalism and hollow atheistic unrealities of scienr falsely so called, now making broad the? phylacteries amongst us. Well, th<a"

if national music be such a power in' moulding and stirring the popular soul I have simply to ask, " Is it so used in t|, '' middle schools of Edinburgh and Scotland at the present moment, or is it not?" r am not directly cognisant of the practice of those schools; in all likelihood as ta this matter considerable differencea vail; but from what I know indirectly j the fruits and issues of that school}- " °f am led to labor under a very sad a»' sn ; • that our national music in tho niainru" even of what are accounted oUr J schools does not receivo tb'it attention to which, r on grounds of educational philosophy Q r. Q f soc i a i po j it it is pre-eminently entitled. I did mt its presence greviously the other night in the students' Concert; and I have received some lame apologies, but no satisfactory reasons, fo.r such most unnatural omission 1 have massed it for the last twenty years, in our west end saloons and other social gatherings ; and not few are tho sound; scoldings, both public and private, whichi I have administered to our dainty younn ladies when X found them nicely got un, with all sorts of dulcet Italian, majestic! German, and pretty frenbh airs, but utterlyunable to delight the heart of a Scotchman with even a random stanza of tho wit and . the wisdom, the character and tlao linmor, the pathos and the patriotism, of a good Scotch song. I told them the things that they sang, and the fashion in which they sang, was a very pretty display of vocal dexterity, if that was all they aimed at; but they ought fco know that a woman must sing with her soul (if she has onei as well as with her throat, and that tba. end of singing is not merely to rinse thei languid chambers of the ears with streams; of Italian melody, but to enrich the blboii (as the thoughts of poets do), to stir- tho heart, and to brace the nerves of a bravo people ; and this noble end never can be attained effectively otherwise than through the medium of national song. To such., reproaches I was generally answered in t that most sweetly innocent way whichi young ladies understand so well, that tho, Scotch melodies are too difficult for theim to attempt, or that their Italian or Genman masters preferred Italian and other impotent pretences of this kind ; but it required no particular perspicacity to per. ceive that these were merely pretences, and that the real cause of this unnatural state of things lay in a false idea of culture, cherished in the bosom of their papas-, and mammas and other guardians, aa>d no. doubt entertained to a considerable extent, —unconsciously i perhaps—in the inmost cogitations of their pretty selves. Thisfaiw idea is a part of a general diseased state of opinion prevalent in tho upper and middle classes of"the country, which, for want of a better word, I have beeu accustomed to designate by the mild term of west-endism, but which a grim censor like Thomas Carlyle. would assuredly sot down as flat. " flunkeyi'sin," and a fine humorist likeThackeray might call aristocratic snoV|bery —a complex disease, to diagnosewhich in all its details would require a long examination, but of which it maysuffice to mention one prominent feature--here—-via, the notion that the Scotch language and everything Scotch means; I vulgarity ; and that English, with a little dabbling in French and German ami Italian accomplishment, means gentility. I do not intend to waste words in blowing to the winds so hollow an imagination. In my judgment there is no vulgarity greater than the vulgarity of the would-be genteel—few things more contemptible than that feebleness of character which, for want a proper self-esteem, instead of working in its peeuliar vein of native excellence, goes pretentiously about to prink: itself all over with what does not belong to it, like the jackdaw with the peacock's feathers. In the feeling of all sound-hearted men and women, Scottish songs ought to be as native in the Edinburgh drawing-rooms, as Highland heather on the Highland hills. But it is far otherwise. So nittahv, for the young ladies. But to return to. the schools and the young gentl»moni. Will Dr.. I>onaldson and Dr. Harvey lia jgood enough to inform me what place-the ■ national music of Scotland holds ia the curriculum of the Scottish High Schools? Does it maintain the honorable positionwhich Plato and Aris.to.tle would certainly have assigned to it ? or dioes it receivo the. cold shoulder? omit omitted altogetheras a piece of Scottish vulgarity, and a thing of novalue towards the achieving of that bright, goal of juvenile west-enders, an Oxford! pass?* The late Dr, Norman Macleod — one of the grandest whales that ever i plashed in the broad sunny sea of humanity —that splendid combination of Aristophanic honor and Pauline apostleship> which we call Norman Macleod, in reference to a certain class of Scottish clergymen on a certain occasion said Ll We are sermonising snobs." So I aay to Dr. Donaldson and Dr. Harvey and myself, { and the whole lot of us who furnish tho ingenuous youth of this c-ountry with those meagre patches of Greek and Latin that pass for learning in Scotland that if by false methods of teaching or inversions of the nornial oi : der of juvenile development we_ prevent the natural growth of a strong, and rich Scottish character by a. (cumbrous bedizen menu with scraps of 'Latin and Greek ornamentation, we are-, classical and the world ought to j know that we are so. But perhaps I ami doing you injustice. Let me know tliet | facts j ; and if I find that music* and! , Scottish rjiusic- specially, has, under late* j good influences unknown to • me, assertedl its naturaj and fitting place in the juvenile : exercise of young Scotsmen under your J superintendence, then £ shall be the firs? to. make the most ample- apology for even suspecting that the fashionable feebleness of west-end affectations has insinuated itself iutQ your severe scholastic halls; and as soon as yoi can as&VM'O me that "Auld Lang Syne," and The M#cgregor's Gathering," and " The Rover of Loch Ryan," and " A.Man's a Man for a' that," and" A'"the Blue Bonnets are over the Border," are- to, be hoard poured, forth in melodious lus,tihood from thelungs and the hearts, of the young hopefuls under your- care, you will not have to» wait long-for the old Professor to joinint the chorus*