then, could the city expend its money ;-especially if it is held to be unlawful to pay higher compensation to teachers, on account of higher qualifications! By the supposition, the city cannot receive its distributive share of the school fund, unless it raises a certain sum of money; and yet it cannot raise this sum of money, because it would be unlawful for it to have schools of such a length and such a quality as that money would support!

A reference to one other legal provision will close what I have to say in favor of the discretionary power of towns to appropriate money for schools.

By the 5th of the 23d chap. of the Revised Statutes, it is enacted that "every town containing five hundred families or householders, shall, besides, &c., maintain a school to be kept by a master of competent ability," &c.; and the law then proceeds to prescribe the qualifications of the master and the length of the school. But by the 76th chap. of the Statutes of 1840, it is enacted that "any town now required by law to maintain such a school as is described by the fifth section of the twenty-third chapter of the Revised Statutes, [the section above referred to,] shall be released from their obligation by raising and expending annually for the support of town or district schools, twenty-five per cent. more than the greatest sum ever raised by assessment, by said town, for the object, before the passage of this act."

Here then is an explicit provision by which any town in the Commonwealth may exempt itself from its legal obligation to maintain a school of a higher order, "for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town." This condition is fulfilled, by "raising and expending annually for the support of the town or district schools, twenty five per cent. more than it had ever before raised," &c. Surely then, it must be lawful, however inexpedient it might be,—to raise this additional sum and expend it upon Common Schools. The amount in Boston, on which this twenty-five per cent. must be computed would be not far from $100,000. Add one quarter to this, and the sum required to be raised, would be about $125,000. How can Boston expend more than $125,000 for teachers' wages, and board,

and fuel for the schools, if all the schools in the city are to be kept, in the aggregate, not more than twenty-four months, and by teachers, who are to be paid only for their competency to teach orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography and arithmetic!

It will be perceived, of course, that I have not treated this subject, in a strictly technical and legal manner, but have only endeavored to present those general views which I think would be decisive with a court, or if not with a court, would be so with the Legislature.

VOCAL MUSIC IN SCHOOLS.

There are about five hundred schools in the State where Vocal music is now practised. Half a dozen years ago, the number was probably less than one hundred.

In speaking of the subject of Vocal Music, in our Common Schools, I ought to make an apology for not having introduced it in former reports, rather than ask permission to refer to it now. The length of the reports heretofore submitted to the Board, has alone deterred me from including this among the topics discussed.

The preädaptation of the human mind to seek and to find pleasure in Music, is proved by the universality with which the vocal art has been practised among men. Each nation and each age steps forward as a separate witness, to prove the existence of musical faculties and desires, in the race; and their testimony is so unanimous aud cumulative that no tribunal can withstand its force. In cultivating music, therefore, are we not following one of the plainest and most universal indications. of nature; or rather of that Being by whose wisdom and benevolence nature was constituted? The Creator has made the human soul susceptible of emotions which can find no adequate expression but in song. Amongst all nations, joy has its chorus, and sorrow its dirge. Patriotism exults over national triumphs, in national songs; and religion yearns, and vainly strives to pour out its full tide of thanksgivings to its Maker,

until the anthem and the hallelujah take the rapt spirit upon their wings and bear it to the throne of God.

Nature not only points, as with her finger, towards the universal culture of the musical art, but she has bestowed upon all men the means of cultivating it. The voice and the car are universal endowments;-or at most, the exceptions are few, and there is abundant reason to believe that these exceptions are not inherent in the nature of things, but only punishments for our infraction of the Physical Laws; and that the number of exceptions may be gradually reduced, until the calamity of privation shall be wholly removed;-and removed too, not by any repeal of the laws that inflict it, but only by obcdience to their requirements. Substantially then, the voice and the ear are universal endowments of nature, and thus the means of enjoying the delights and of profiting by the utilities of music, are conferred upon all.

Of what other, among that beautiful sisterhood, called the Fine or the Elegant Arts, can this be said? Doubtless there is an instinct pointing to architecture, painting, sculpture, &c., as well as an instinct of music. Men might have reared arches, columns, and temples,, as embodiments of their emotions of grandeur and sublimity, had no necessity for shelter ever prompted the erection of a human habitation. So painting and sculpture might have arisen to commemorate the lineaments or the deeds of the departed great and good, or to solace or to inspire their bereaved survivors. But how costly, for instance, are architectural gratifications. What years of labor, what expenditure of means, must precede the enjoyments they confer. In any previous age, and even in the present, how small is the portion of the human family to whom the sight of a splendid edifice is accessible. But the pleasure resulting from the use of the human voice in song, is the common patrimony of mankind. The inmate of the lowliest dwelling as well as the master of the lordliest castle may enjoy them. He whose hard lot deprives him not only of the embellishments but even of the common comforts of life, may regale himself with the unpurchased "wealth of song." The pleasures of music attend their possessor not only in the hours of prosperity, but in

those of sorrow. Music may be a companion in the lone vigils of pain, or in the deeper solitude of bereavement. It may support and console, when no other of the benignant family of the Arts could give balm or anodyne to the wounded spirit.

In one respect, Vocal Music holds signal preeminence over Instrumental. The latter is too expensive a luxury to be within the reach of a great portion of mankind. But the instruments of vocal music levy no contributions, upon another's skill, or our own money. They are the gratuity of nature, and in this respect, the common mother has rarely been unmindful of any of her children. Of the implements or contrivances by which many pleasures are produced, it is the vaunted recommendation, that they can be compacted in a small space and carried about by the traveller, on his person, or in his equipage, with out cumbersomeness. But, in this respect, we can say of this simple yet most exquisite mechanism,-the organs of the human voice, what can be said of no contrivance or workmanship, prepared by human skill and designed for human enjoyNo one can carry about his person or transport from place to place, a column, a statue, or a painting, however beautiful, or however essential to his enjoyment, it may be; but the apparatus for singing is the unconscious companion of all; and we can often use it without hinderance when engaged in active occupations. Present at all times, unburdensome, a means of gratuitous solace, an inexpensive luxury,-what other of the refining arts offers inducements for cultivation so universal, or rewards that cultivation with bounties so generous and manifold?

ment.

Nature has drawn broadly the lines of another great distinction, which redounds with equal force, in favor of the vocal art. I refer to an organic difference, established in our spiritual constitution, between the gratifications of the intellect, and the pleasures of taste or sentiment. ers are progressive in their nature. mand novelty. If fresh exertions are truths, all exertion will soon cease. no longer find pleasure in tossing the lightness that amused his childhood.

The intellectual powFor stimulus they dcnot rewarded by fresh. The mental athlete can playthings, of feathery He demands a solidity

From

that will cohere in his grasp and a might that will match his strength. The philosopher cannot return to toys and bubbles. All his delight in the former phases of things dies out by familiarity, and he presses onward to the discovery of new truths. The ratiocinative mind, so long accustomed to logical processes that it has acquired an almost intuitive power of discerning remote conclusions on an inspection of premises, can no longer tread in those infantile steps, by which the consecutive stages in an argument or demonstration were one passed over. the statement of the problem, it springs to the solution,-disdaining the tedious lingering, not less than the awkward movements, by which its laborious way from premises to conclusion, was once achieved. It is almost as impossible for a practised mind to imitate the slowness of childhood in its thoughts, as it would have been, in childhood, to equal the rapidity obtained by practice. But how different in all these respects, are the pleasures of sentiment. The earliest and simplest melodies or songs are capable of affording an ever-renewing delight. Though rchearsed a thousand times, they yield fresh enjoyment at every repetition. Even to the mature mind, they have lost none of the charms which invested them in its youth; and they are as congenial to the thoughtfulness of age as to the thoughtlessness, of childhood. Their peculiar attribute is not to grow old; not to weary the oft-listening sense, not to pall upon the oft-attentive mind.* Hence the admirable, the unequalled power of song to furnish pleasure or relief when other mental gratifications cannot be commanded; and even when others cannot be endured. When the energies of the intellect have been expen ded by severe application, or its elasticity has been destroyed by a weight of cares, or its vigor broken down by sickness ;when, from any cause, these onward-tending faculties can no longer find or create their natural diversions, it is then, that the simple and calm delights of music restore the energies that have been wasted by toil, revivify the spirits languishing with care, or cause the dawn of joy to arise upon the long watches of

"Would one think," says J. J. Rousseau, "that an old dotard like myself, worn out with cares and troubles, should find myself weeping like an infant while I murmur, with a broken and trembling voice, the songs of iny childhood."