One of these days America is going to be the musical center of the
world. When that day is fully come, and men sit down to write about it,
I hope they won't forget to give due credit to the reed organ, Stephen
Foster, and the Sabbath-school. The reed organ had a lot to do with
musical culture. It is much decried now by people that prefer a piano
that hasn't been tuned for four years; but the reed organ will come into
its own some day, don't forget. Without it the Sabbath-school could not
have been. Anybody that would have a piano in a Sabbath-school ought to
be prosecuted.
When music, heavenly maid, was just coming to after that awful lick the
Puritans hit her, the first sign of returning life was that people began
to tire of the ten or a dozen tunes to which our great-grandfathers
droned and snuffled all their hymns. In those days there was raised up a
man named Stephen Foster, who “heard in his soul the music of wonderful
melodies,” and we have been singing them ever since--“'Way Down upon
the Swanee Ribber,” and “Old Kentucky Home,” and “Nellie Gray,” and the
rest. Then Bradbury and Philip Phillips and many more of them began to
write exactly the same kind of tunes for sacred words. They were just
the thing for the Sabbath-school, but they were more, much more.
You know that when a fellow gets so he can shave himself without cutting
half his lip off, when it takes him half an hour to get the part in his
hair to suit him, when he gets in the way of shining his shoes and has
a pretty taste in neckties, he doesn't want to bawl the air of a piece
like the old stick-in-the-muds up in the Amen corner or in Mr. Parker's
class. He wants to sing bass. Air is too high for him anyhow unless he
sings it with a hog noise. Oh, you get out! You do, too, know what a
“hog noise” is. You want to let on you've always lived in town. Likely
story if you never heard anybody in the hog-pasture with a basket of
nubbins calling, “Peeg! Peeg! Boo-eel Booee!” A man's voice breaks into
falsetto on the “Boo-ee!” Well, anyhow, such a young man as I am telling
you of would be ashamed to sing with a hog noise. He wants to sing bass.
Now the regular hymn-tunes change the bass as often as they change the
soprano, and if you go fumbling about for the note, by the time you get
it right it is wrong, because the tune has gone on and left you. The
Sabbath-school songs had the young man Absalom distinctly in view. They
made the bass the same all through the measure, and all the changes were
strictly on the do, sol and fa basis. As far as the other notes in the
scale were concerned, the young man Absalom need not bother his head
with them. With do, sol and fa he could sing through the whole book from
cover to cover as good as anybody.
When people find out what fun it is to sing by note, it is only a step
to the “Messiah,” two blocks up and turn to the right, as you might say.
After that, it is only going ahead till you get to “Vogner.” Yes, and
many's the day you called the hogs. Don't tell me.
Once a month on Sunday evenings there were Sabbath-school concerts.
The young ones sat in the front seats, ten or twelve in a pew. “Now,
children,” said the superintendent, “I want you all to sing loud
and show the folks how nice you can sing. Page 65. Sixty-fi'th page,
'Scatter Seeds of Kindness.' Now, all sing out now.” We licked our
thumbs and scuffled through the book till we found the place. We scowled
at it, and stuck out our mouths at it, and shrieked at it, and bawled
at it, and did the very best we knew to give an imitation of two hundred
little pigs all grabbed by the hind leg at once. That was what made
folks call it a concert.
There were addresses to the dear children by persons that teetered on
their toes and dimpled their cheeks in dried-apple smiles as us. Some
complain that they do not know how to talk to children and keep them
interested. Oh, pshaw! Simple as A B C. Once you learn the trick you can
talk to the little folks for an hour and a half on “Banking as Related
to National Finance,” and keep them on the quiver of excitement. Ask
questions. And to be sure that they give the right answers (a very
important thing) remember this: When you wish them to say “Yes, sir,”
end your question with “Don't they?” or “isn't it?” When you wish them
to say “No, sir,” end your question with “Do they?” or “Is it?” When
you wish them to choose between two answers, mention first the one they
mustn't take, then pause, look archly at them, and mention the one they
must take. Thus:
Q. --Now, dear children, I wonder if you can tell me where the sun
rises. In the north, doesn't it?
A. --Yes, sir.
Q. --Yes, you are right. In the north. And because it rises in the north
every afternoon at three, how do we walk about? On our feet, do we?
A. --No, sir.
Q. --No. Of course not. Then how is it we do walk about? On our ears
or--(now the look) on our noses?
A. --On our noses.
This method, if carefully and systematically employed, was never known
to fail. It is called the Socratic method.
The most interesting feature of the monthly Sabbath-school concert is
universally conceded to be the treasurer's report. So much on hand at
the last meeting, so much contributed by each class during the month
last past, so much expended, so much left on hand at present. We used
to sit and listen to it with slack jaws and staring eyes. Money, money,
oceans of money! Thirty-eight cents and seventy-six cents and a dollar
four cents! My!
The librarian's report was nowhere. It was a bully library, too, and
contained the “Through by Daylight” Series, and the “Ragged Dick”
Series, and the “Tattered Tom” Series, and the “Frank on the Gunboat”
Series, and the “Frank the Young Naturalist” Series, and the “Elm
Island” Series--Did you ever read “The Ark of Elm Island”, and “Giant
Ben of Elm Island”? You didn't? Ah, you missed it--and the “B. O. W. C.”
Series--and say! there was a book in that library--oo-oo! “Cast up
by the Sea,” all about wreckers, and false lights on the shore, and
adventures in Central Africa, and there's a nigger queen that wants to
marry him, and he don't want to because he loves a girl in England--I
think that's kind of soft--and he kills about a million of them trying
to get away. You want to get that book. Don't let them give you “Patient
Henry” or “Charlie Watson, the Drunkard's Little Son.” They're about
boys that take sick and die--no good.
It was a bully library, but the report wasn't interesting. Major
Humphreys's always was. He was the treasurer because he worked in the
bank. He came from the Western Reserve, and said “cut” when he meant
coat, and “hahnt” when he meant heart. I can shut my eyes and hear
him read his report now: “Infant-class, Mrs. Sarah M. Boggs, one
dolla thutty-eight cents; Miss Dan'ells's class, fawty-six cents; Miss
Goldrick's class, twenty-faw cents; Mr. Pahnker's class, ninety-three
cents; Miss Rut's class, naw repawt.”
Poor old Miss Root! There was hardly ever any report from her class.
Often she hadn't a penny to give, and perhaps the other old ladies, who
found the keenest possible delight in doing what they called “running up
the references,” had no more, for they were relics of an age when women
weren't supposed to have money to fling right and left in the foolish
way that women will if they're not looked after--shoes for the baby, and
a new calico dress every two or three years or so.
Yes, it is rather interesting for a change now and then to hear these
folks go on about what a terrible thing the Sabbath-school is, and how
it does more harm than good. They get really excited about it, and storm
around as if they expected folks to take them seriously. They know, just
as well as we do, that this wouldn't be any kind of a country at all if
we couldn't look back and remember the Sabbath-school, or if we couldn't
fix up the children Sunday afternoons, and find their lesson leaves for
them, and hunt up a penny to give to the poor heathen, and hear them say
the Golden Text before they go, and tell them to be nice. Papa and mamma
watch them from the window till they turn the corner, and then go back
to the Sunday paper with a secure sort of feeling. They won't learn
anything they oughtn't to at the Sabbath-school.