The newly elected professor of music is Dr. Stoeckel, a native of Bavaria, one of the earliest pioneers of the grand army of educated musicians who, emigrating from Germany to the United States, have taught Americans to love and to understand what is best and noblest in musical art. He came to this country in Dec. 1847, narrowly escaping death by shipwreck on the way, and his first evening in the land of his adoption was devoted to an impromptu concert at Nantucket, where his ship had been cast ashore, the entertainment being for the benefit of the castaways, who had lost all their baggage, and were therefore without means for prosecuting their journey to New York. After a short residence in that city, he removed to New Haven, provided with letters of introduction to some members of the Yale Faculty, including Prof. Larned.

Mrs. Larned, a gifted woman and a true musician, soon discerned the young German's ability, and exerted her influence to the end that the college and the city might have the benefit of it. Mr. Stoeckel was soon appointed pianist and afterward director of the New Haven Musical Association, and began his long and successful career as the music teacher of hundreds of pupils. About 1852 he was installed as instructor of music at Yale, assuming also the duties of college organist. For several years thereafter he was the director of the Mendelssohn Society of New Haven, and superintended the production in this city of all the standard oratorios and many other classical works. He has also given in New Haven a large number of important orchestral concerts, and, in a word, has been from the outset the leading musical factor in the community. In 1864 he received from Yale the title of Doctor of Music. In 1876 he attended the first Wagner festival at Baireuth, and subsequently wrote a noteworthy and valuable critical account of that event, which was published in the NEW ENGLANDER AND YALE REVIEW, and attracted much attention, and he has contributed frequently musical papers of value to various periodicals.

Dr. Stoeckel has always been an indefatigable student and a diligent worker. He is thoroughly versed in all branches of his art, and has composed many excellent works, including four operas, which await the formation of a permanent American operatic company; a large number of hymn tunes and other sacred pieces, besides overtures and similiar orchestral works. Personally he is genial and popular, and he is in every way admirably fitted for his recently enlarged functions. A two years' course in harmony has just been instituted by him under the new régime, and the class already numbers over fifty students. It is the hope and the confident expectation of the friends of the enterprise that this is only the auspicious commencement of what, under the name of the Yale School of Music, may be destined to exert a powerful influence for good on the future musical education of the American public."

QUITE an erroneous impression of the aim and purpose of musical instruction, recently admitted as a branch in the curriculum of Yale University, has found a rapid and wide spread circulation. The most contradictory views have obtained expression and claimed recognition with considerable emphasis. Most suggestions which it has been my privilege to become acquainted with, strange to say, give evidence of an imperfect knowledge of the extent and scope of the endowment, which made it possible for the University to offer musical instruction, and what is still more strange they display a lamentable ignorance of musical instruction in general, and particularly of musical instruction in a high school of learning.

I propose therefore on this occasion to explain as briefly as possible the reason which demanded the adoption of the special courses of musical instruction which hereafter will be open to students of the University. I ask your kind attention and patience, and beg you to follow me in surveying the field of musical history, for the purpose of drawing therefrom the precepts according to which musical instruction ought to be given in a University. In this way I am confident the only satisfactory reply can be made to so many and widely diverging views.

Music the science of sound and the art of expressing by sounds, sensations, feelings, and emotions-found its development only after the other fine arts had already attained a ripe maturity and perfection. After this, successful attempts of improvement in architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry were rare exceptions. The Greek and Roman artists of old, and a few of later date, like Michael Angelo, Raphael, Dante, and others reached the apex of their art. The monuments left by these masters will be forever our teachers. We can try to imitate them, in some particulars we may equal them, but even our greatest genius could not surpass them. The past is the high school of these branches of the fine arts. Since the monuments of the plastic arts of the ancients have been recovered; since the printing press has made it possible to send copies of

them everywhere; since poetry and painting in neatly bound volumes and nicely framed pictures have been accorded places upon the book shelves and on the walls of our homes: the models of imperishable beauty are accessible to the student and the lover of art as much now as in the days of their golden era. These ancient instructors always have had and still have no small share in the education of mankind.

But it is quite different with music. Whatever the ancients may have achieved in it, is to us moderns a sealed book. The few monumenta claimed as of Greek extraction are of doubtful origin. The musical system of the Greeks however is known to us, and was and is the basis for all scientific musical development. It is their musical notation which made it impossible for them to reach so high a standard in this branch of the fine arts as in the others. It is only after the adoption of a new system of notation within the last few centuries, that music showed a tendency for growth and improvement. Music is unquestionably an art of the present, which glories in its highest triumphs during the passing hour. It would be an interesting problem to solve, why music-the most popular of the fine arts, the one which accompanies the life of man from cradle to grave, the one most universally found among the most primitive as well as the most cultured nations-was so late in its growth; so much behind her sister arts in gaining recognition as an equal. I say it would be an interesting task to find adequate reasons for such neglect. For it cannot be denied, that many of the scientists even at this date-in the last decade of our enlightened 19th century-rate music as the Cinderella among her sister arts. Like her legendary prototype music is called to service by her proud sisters, whenever and wherever they can make egotistic use of her. Although busily engaged in the fight for recognition as an art of equal worth, esteem, and importance, she has to respond to the call for assistance whenever a splendid piece of architecture is finished, a statue is unveiled, a school of art is opened, or exhibitions of poetry and rhetoric take place. invitation on such occasions to however as a coequal of these to offer amusement, recreation, refreshment, or to spread her

Yes! she usually receives an take part in the exercises, not arts, but as a servant, a waiter,

harmonious mantle over the hum of conversation elicited by the dazzling exhibitions of her proud and dominating sisters.

It would be unjust not to acknowledge the rapid advance that music has made and is still making in this country. At no time has there been more interest shown in its legitimate progress than now, both by professional men and the public. Instrumental music in particular has interpreters in this country second to none. Orchestra, string quartette, piano, and organ are worthily represented. Would that the same could be said of vocal music. There are also but a few composers of higher aim in musical art; oratorio, opera, classical chamber music, as also classical music for piano and organ, have still to be obtained from the importer.

There are various reasons for this. 1st. The publishers do not want meritorious compositions. They look primarily for popular pieces, which bring a quick return to the investment of capital needed for publication. It takes time, often a long time, to bring a musical work of superior quality into public favor, while the light pieces known as salon-music find a ready and rapid sale. This is the main reason why tone-poets cannot get a hearing. 2d. Another reason, why compositions of a high order cannot be brought easily before the public, is the expense, connected with the performance of an oratorio, opera, or similar extensive musical work.

When an architect, a sculptor, a painter, or poet has completed a work of art, it is ready for inspection and criticism and may receive its merited praise or censure. How is it with a musician, who has finished a composition-not a compilation-a composition worthy of the name? The performance of any tone-poem which needs for interpretation a combination. of orchestral and vocal forces, requires a large outlay of money and time, an expenditure of energy and business capacity, as also of business venture, with which so sensitive organizations as poets are very rarely blessed. Suppose a tone-poet opens his desk and brings one of his creations to light for the purpose of performance.

First he must find a publisher (for the orchestral and vocal parts must be printed), then the singers must be secured and an orchestra engaged; then the rehearsals must begin: the dreary

and exhausting work of drilling the active musical forces must be continued until a reasonable degree of proficiency is obtained ere he can bring his musical work before the public. And when he has gone even so far, he needs a large amount of money to satisfy the clappers, or they will whistle down the most meritorious work. We are all conversant with the failure of the first performances of Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Fidelio, and of Wagner's Tannhäuser at home and in Paris! These failures were the result of causes, similar to those mentioned. Indeed it is well known that the generous gifts of King Lewis II. of Bavaria, toward the bringing out of the works of his friend, Richard Wagner, brought him to the point of bankruptcy. All over the world and at all times it needed a great deal of energy and pluck and perseverance, coupled with the possession of a good deal of money and business capacity, to bring meritorious musical works before a critical audience. It stands to reason that works of such demands ought to have intrinsic value. How to produce music of such intrinsic value, depends on the preparation the musician is able to get. On this preparation must be founded as on a rock the ability to produce meritorious compositions. Without this preparation the artist will never attain for his art the success so necessary and so desirable for true advancement; nor will he ever come to that state of selfculture and relentless self-criticism, without which no work of art has ever been nor ever will be created. It is easy to see why the salon-music and the trifles which float the musical market attract more of the creative forces than the severer demands of poetical conceptions.

Music was neither invented nor discovered. It is implanted by the Creator in every human being. It is a God-given gift, inborn, innate, inherent in man-like the moral and religious sentiments. All these are found in every soul, more or less developed in individuals, as well as in whole races, tribes, and nations. They are often seemingly absent, but in truth are only unnoticed, when not aroused from their dormant states. They never fail to spring into life and activity when awakened judiciously and nursed and cultivated carefully. Even at the earliest dawn of human awakening to the sense of dependence upon a divine, almighty power, the manifestations of music as