Excerpt from Music and History This palatial music building is extraordinary even among the many sumptuous edifices possessed by some of our great music schools and conservatories. But what distinguishes it more than the eminently thoughtful and practical arrangement of its space is the instruction imparted within its walls. For this is a depart ment in a liberal arts college and not a school or conservatory of music. Needless to say, I do not wish to imply that an academic department of music is, by its very nature, superior to a school of music; it stands to reason that art comes first and its Study and criticism follow. What I mean is that in this country as in England, whence our collegiate system comes we tend to confuse the functions of the two institutions, with the result that music in the college, which 1s an institution of higher education (and perhaps even of learning), is often not taught as one of the liberal arts but as a skill, only tenuously related to the other subjects of instruction and intellectual endeavor. This college can take pride in the fact that it is not so at Vassar, for its music department puts to shame the under graduate division of many a great university. One man is re sponsible for this enlightened attitude. He not only virtually designed this building, but planned the curriculum, organized the fine library, and himself took charge of the historical courses that became models of their kind. I am happy to pay tribute to George Dickinson in his own home. Everyone knows about his achievements at Vassar, but he has done much more: he has vitally influenced the cause of musical education and scholarship all over the land. Now, as I turn to the business in hand, I do so with the feeling that lectures of this sort would not be delivered in our colleges were it not for his long and patient Work and determination to make music instruction in the college worthy of the sister disciplines. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.