Finding Their Voices - Amherst College
Finding Their Voices - Amherst College
Finding Their Voices - Amherst College
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colleges, which were otherwise devoted to the abstract ideal of intellectual and moral<br />
improvement of the mind. In an attempt to make the study of music more amenable to<br />
the collegiate sphere, music educators began to invent new, more cerebral methods of<br />
approaching the subject. John Knowles Paine (whose career will be discussed in depth<br />
later in this chapter) proved to be the most vocal advocate of these new ideals. Outspoken<br />
for his time, Paine believed that no credit should ever be offered for the practice of music<br />
and that composition, theory, and history should be the focus of music education.<br />
This issue came to a head at Vassar after Ritter’s death in 1891. Only a few<br />
months after the old professor was buried, James Monroe Taylor, the president of the<br />
college, issued a notice to the board of trustees in which he questioned the usefulness of<br />
the curriculum that Ritter had created:<br />
All who have watched carefully the recent development of the <strong>College</strong>, must have<br />
felt that the relation of it to our schools of Painting and Music involves a source of<br />
weakness, and even the possibility of an influence antagonistic to our academic<br />
development. 122<br />
At the time, Taylor was on a mission to raise Vassar’s academic standards to that<br />
of its peers. Remarking that Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, and “most of the colleges for<br />
women” were undergoing similar re-organizations, Taylor warned the trustees that the<br />
time required for musical study “might be a menace to higher standards.” More<br />
specifically, Taylor wrote, as “is done in Harvard University,” courses in Art and Music,<br />
as well as membership in the Orchestra, should now be allowed only to juniors and<br />
seniors (though the extra fees would be abolished), and could not be counted towards<br />
graduation. Taylor felt that these changes would place “music on a more dignified basis<br />
than now, and would give it, as a study, a place worthy of it in a liberal education.” The<br />
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122 James Monroe Taylor, Notice issued from the President’s Office in October, 1891, to the Board of<br />
Trustees.<br />
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