Finding Their Voices - Amherst College

We sincerely hope that the Corporation of the College may be so fortunate
as to select for his successor a person as well fitted as Mr. Homer was for his
place, and that the opportunity will be taken to make the place a professorship in
academical rank, and in compensation, such as should make it an object of
ambition to a college graduate to fill the post. There are such graduates who have
chosen to devote their lives to the musical profession, to whom such a place
would be the worthy reward of an honorable ambition. Can it not be done now? 152
Harvard found a replacement for Homer unusually quickly, perhaps because he
had died in the middle of the Spring term and needed an immediate replacement for
continuity of the music course. By the end of the month the college had appointed John
Knowles Paine, a noted organist and composer who had recently returned to Boston after
spending several years studying music in, as one might guess, Germany, to pick up the
course that Homer had been teaching that term. Although still officially listed as
“Instructor in Music,” the position was described in a revealing slip of the tongue in
communication to Paine as “Teacher of Sacred Music.” 153 Paine’s contract, for $500 per
year, was to end in June, to be permanently renewed only if the venture proved
satisfactory to both parties. Although initially Harvard administration had tried to replace
Homer’s position as organist and leader of the choir with various amateur instructors, it
soon noticed a drop in quality and appointed Paine to perform these duties, netting him an
additional $350. He now had all of the duties Homer had once had, at the same salary,
within only a month of being hired.
Although his official duties were only to teach choral music, Paine soon brought
his other talents into use. For the March 1863 inauguration of Thomas Hill, Harvard’s
new president, Paine taught a Glee Club associated with the Harvard Musical Association
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152 John Sullivan Dwight, “Death of Levi P. Homer,” Dwight’s Journal of Music 20, no. 25 (22 March,
1862): 407.
153 Letter from A.P. Peabody to J.K. Paine, 18 March 1862, Letters of Acting President Andrew P.
Peabody, 16, Harvard University Archives.
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