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Speaking before Barnard College alumnae in Manhattan last week, Writer John (Helen of Troy) Erskine tossed a bouquet to present-day public-school music, and a brickbat to the colleges: "Today there are in the U. S. high schools more than 6,000 full symphony orchestras with all instruments represented, thousands more with only a few instruments represented. In western cities, such as San Diego, these orchestras are taken very seriously. . . . Colleges do not put much emphasis on music or the arts. They emphasize the value of play in all its various athletic forms. . . ."
Dr. Erskine attributed musical inertia in the colleges to "the pressure of two ideals in American education: the English system which is like a hydraulic press, producing its own personality, and the Continental system which does not prescribe every detail of the student's life, but merely provides opportunities for him to be educated." But there are other, more obvious reasons why music in the colleges has not kept pace with the mushroom growth in the public schools. Public schools catch the country's youth before it has subdivided, when the percentage of musical talent is actually higher. Public school students have more foreign blood, more children in whose families music is a habit. High schools all over the country give credits for music but a majority of the big eastern colleges have not yet become reconciled to accepting these credits for entrance.*
Writer Erskine is by no means unaware of the many praiseworthy college achievements. He knows that college glee clubs sing difficult music expertly now. The Harvard singers, rigorously trained by Dr. Archibald Thompson Davison, appear frequently with the Boston Symphony. Princetonians with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Before the War glee clubs were razzle-dazzle groups who knew the college songs with all their ramifications and a few comic numbers. Before the War colleges sometimes had to hire professional bands to help enliven their football games.
The University of Illinois can now commandeer a huge band of its own, a big reserve string-section which converts the band into a 300-piece orchestra. But in general, colleges lack serious orchestras. Instrumentalists instead form jazz bands, often playing to earn money. No student symphony has made a reputation which can compare with the leading glee clubs'. Smith girls have made a brave showing in the enterprising productions put on by Director Werner Josten (TIME, May 18. 1931) but they import professionals to play the difficult instruments. The University of Michigan sponsors one of the oldest and most important of U. S. festivals but it uses the Chicago Symphony soloists from outside.
*Muggle-smoking was the offense for which Louis Armstrong served a jail term last winter. Muggles (also called "Reefers" or "Mary Warners") are shorter, thinner than ordinary cigarets, cause a temporary, happy jag, cost 25¢ in Harlem. The drug in Muggles comes from a variety of hemp called Marijuana (TIME, Sept. 7, 1930).