of the school as a "People's Forum" will, if definitely followed, transform the character of our political meetings; for where better than in the school house shall the people come to reason together? The main questions that are the subject of our political controversies are at bottom educational, and for this reason it is the policy now to educate the people in time of quiet and when reason controls and not confine the campaign of education on economic and political questions to the period immediately prior to an election. It is a perfectly logical step from these weekly discussions on subjects relating to government, given in many cases by city or state officials, to neighborhood meetings to consider local, state and national affairs, and then to have political meetings in these school houses.

The audiences not alone participate in the discussion but participate in suggesting the type of lecture that is desired in any particular neighborhood. In this way a community feeling is developed and men get to know men. As each different locality has some predominating characteristic either in population or in vocation, the special needs of the locality are considered and the lecture meetings become one of the most important socializing influences in a great city and a great counteracting influence to the loneliness which is so apt to prevail. Family life is developed through attendance at the lectures and interest is awakened in thousands who otherwise would lead dull and monotonous lives.

A WIDE RANGE OF SUBJECTS

While practical subjects such as first aid to the injured and hygiene are dwelt upon yet great attention is paid to subjects such as poetry and music, for someone has well said, that if sentiment is eliminated from business transactions, it is of all the more importance that it be added to recreation and leisure. The world never needed poetry so much as now. Charles Eliot Norton once said: "Whatever your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with other affairs, do not fail to secure a few moments every day for the refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry."

One of the most important portions of the population reached by the public lecture system is the Italian and Yiddish immigrant classes who are appealed to by lectures in their own tongues on subjects arranged to prepare them for American life. As an example the titles of a course are given: "We and Our Children,"

"Juvenile Delinquency-Its Prevention," "Vocational Training," "Household Economy," "Citizenship," etc.

THE NEW TYPE OF SCHOOL HOUSE

The movement for adult education not alone gives a new interpretation to education but calls into being a new type of school house, a school house which is to be adapted not alone to the instruction of children but for the education of men and women, so that there should be in each modern school house a proper auditorium with seats for adults and equipped with apparatus for scientific lectures and with the proper means for illustration. The new school houses built in our city contain such auditoriums and they become social centers, real, genuine, democratic neighborhood houses. Some of these school houses are open on Sunday; if the museum and the library are open on Sunday why should not the school house also be open on Sunday afternoon and in its main hall the people be gathered Sunday afternoon or evening to listen to an uplifting address of a biographical, sociological or ethical character, or to listen to a recital of noble music on the school organ. There are five such organ recitals now being conducted on Sundays in the New York schools.

THE WIDENING OF UNIVERSITY INFLUENCE

Education for adults has brought about the widening of the influence of the university. Of all the classes in a community the most patriotic should be those who have had the benefit of a higher education. Professor Woodbridge says:

To many it appears that the university is an institution primarily engaged in conferring degrees rather than in the great and important business of public instruction; but public instruction is the university's great and important business. Current events perilously invite the university to enter upon its larger opportunity. Amid the wreck of so much civilization, it stands challenged as the one human institution whose professed aim is the substitution of the empire of man over nature through morality and intelligence for the empire of man over man, through politics and force. Especially in a democracy the university should be the source where public opinion is constantly renewed and refreshed, for it is the best means yet devised for the attainment of democracy and civilization. Surely it is not the ideal dream of the visionary, it is not the faint hope of the philosopher, it is the stern truth of history that only the school can save the state!

The university in a great city should be one of the most powerful public service corporations within the state. One of the most distinguished professors in one of our leading universities recently wrote concerning his experience:

It is a genuine pleasure to lecture to New York audiences. I am quite sincere in saying that I lecture to none better or more responsive. Among the impressions that I have had from New York audiences are these: That nothing is too abstract or profound to present to them if it is presented in a fairly attractive and altogether human fashion; that no audiences, university or otherwise, are more accessible to ideas; that discussions need never be run into dogma or partisanship, if the lecturer will take the frank attitude that the lectures are educational, deal with principles, and are not concerned with political controversies. Finally, my faith in democracy has been strengthened and increased by these experiences. We need have no misgivings about the power of the people to think straight when we see these New York audiences.

These words from the professor express the true purpose of the teacher in a scheme for adult education whose purpose is the creation of sound public opinion upon which the future of our democracy rests.

Adult education as interpreted by the public lecture system has broadened the meaning of the term education and formed a continuation school in the best sense. It reaches all classes of society for the audiences are truly democratic. It brings culture in touch with the uncultured, adds to the stock of information of the people and nourishes their ideals. In these days of shorter hours and greater leisure, the toilers will find in adult education the stimulus for the gratification of their intellectual desires, and a larger world is given them in which to live. Their daily labor will be dignified, new joy will come into their lives through association with science, literature and art, and they will discover that true happiness does not come from wealth but from sympathy with the best things in art, science and nature.

THE SPREAD OF THE COMMUNITY MUSIC IDEA

BY PETER W. DYKEMA, M.LITT.,

Professor of Music, University of Wisconsin.

The National Conference of Community Centers and Related Problems held in New York City in April, 1916, prefaced its call to the workers in the various parts of the United States by the following quotation from John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia University, which may well serve as the motto or underlying idea of the movement for community music in this country: "The furtherance of the depth and width of human intercourse is the measure of civilization. Freedom and fullness of human companionship is the aim, and intelligent coöperative experimentation, the method."

COMMUNITY MUSIC DEFINED

Community music is a term that has obtained great vogue the past three years and yet so far as I know it has never been defined. It may be worth while, however, for the sake of definiteness in this paper and the discussion which may ensue, to indicate one conception of a proper definition. First of all, it may be said that community music is not the name of a new type of music nor even of musical endeavor. It does not include any particular kind of music or any particular kind of performer. It is not so much the designation of a new thing as a new point of view. It may employ any of the older and well tried manifestations of music and musical endeavor, and by means of the new spirit transform them to suit its own purposes. Stated positively and concretely, community music is socialized music; music, to use Lincoln's phrase, for the people, of the people, and by the people. Let us look for a moment at each. of these three aspects.

(1) MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE

That "man shall not live by bread alone" is a statement which implies that while it is entirely proper that man's physical needs be taken care of, his life is incomplete, his development stunted, if

only these needs be provided. The movement for community art in its various manifestations is one of the responses which America is making to this hoary dictum. Never before have there been such widespread efforts to give everybody the opportunity of hearing an abundance of music. Free concerts by bands and orchestras during the summer season; free or lowpriced concerts by bands and orchestras, popular priced opera, free organ recitals during the winter; lectures on music with copious illustrations, concerts by school organizations, open demonstrations of the wonderful possibilities of mechanical music producers; the use of these same instruments in countless homes-these are all indications of the tremendous development of opportunities for even the lowliest to hear all the music he desires. Many of these developments are purely private financial schemes for increasing revenues by obtaining a small profit from a very large number of auditors. A surprisingly large number, however, are either the activities of groups of public-spirited citizens who furnish the entertainments, at their own expense or at cost prices, or the direct undertaking of the municipality itself. From coast to coast, there is a chain of civic music associations, municipal orchestras, choruses, and organs. In Portland, Maine; New York City; Tiffin, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; Winona, Minnesota, and in many other places, out to Oakland, California, are found the outposts of what promises to be a large army of municipally employed musicians. Starting with Evanston, Illinois, and working east and west has gone the movement for the establishment, in connection with the public libraries, of a collection of records for piano-player and phonograph which may be borrowed and taken home as though they were books-as, indeed, they are to many whose ears must be their eyes. A number of normal schools and universities in the middle west are using the plan which has been so excellently developed at Emporia, Kansas, of sending upon call, even into the remotest communities, records with accompanying lectures or explanations and in some cases with a phonograph or even with lantern slides. Five of these universities have gone rather extensively into the business of furnishing, at the lowest possible prices to the communities of their states, high class musical entertainments. By this means small communities that heretofore have heard only mediocre musical entertainments now are able to hear excellent soloists and good ensemble work. The height of the latter type