for the white Southerners among whose slaves this music grew, as well
as the people of the North, have always looked upon negro music as an
exotic and curious thing. Familiar as it is to us, it is yet as
foreign a music as any Tyrolean jodel or Hungarian czardas.

The music of the American Indian, often strangely beautiful and
impressive, would be as reasonably chosen as that of these imported
Africs. E.A. MacDowell had, indeed, written a picturesque and
impressive Indian suite, some time before the Dvorakian invasion. He
asserts that the Indian music is preferable to the Ethiopian, because
its sturdiness and force are more congenial with the national mood.

But the true hope for a national spirit in American music surely lies,
not in the arbitrary seizure of some musical dialect, but in the
development of just such a quality as gives us an individuality among
the nations of the world in respect to our character as a people; and
that is a Cosmopolitanism made up of elements from all the world, and
yet, in its unified qualities, unlike any one element. Thus our music
should, and undoubtedly will, be the gathering into the spirit of the
voices of all the nations, and the use of all their expressions in an
assimilated, a personal, a spontaneous manner. This need not, by any
means, be a dry, academic eclecticism. The Yankee, a composite of all
peoples, yet differs from them all, and owns a sturdy individuality.
His music must follow the same fate.

As our governmental theories are the outgrowth of the experiments and
experiences of all previous history, why should not our music, voicing
as it must the passions of a cosmopolitan people, use cosmopolitan
expressions? The main thing is the individuality of each artist. To be
a citizen of the world, provided one is yet spontaneous and sincere
and original, is the best thing. The whole is greater than any of its
parts.

Along just these lines of individualized cosmopolitanism the American
school is working out its identity. Some of our composers have shown
themselves the heirs of European lore by work of true excellence in
the larger classic and romantic forms.

The complaint might be made, indeed, that the empty, incorrect period
of previous American music has given place to too much correctness and
too close formation on the old models. This is undoubtedly the result
of the long and faithful discipleship under German methods, and need
not be made much of in view of the te