Centennial History - Presidents (1907-1938)
Frances E. Clark (1907)
Though she never officially served as President of MENC, Frances Elliot Clark presided over the first meeting of music supervisors in Keokuk, Iowa, and many consider her to be the Mother of the Conference. A native of Angola, Indiana, Clark graduated from Tri-State College and the Thomas Training School in Detroit. She served as supervisor of music in the Milwaukee City School District and as the Vice President of the National Education Association's Department of Music Education. Clark was active in the early efforts to form the organization. She worked to popularize the use of phonograph machines, later called record players, in music classrooms by writing educational brochures and helping to determine the content of school recordings. She also worked for the Victor Talking Machine Company's Education Department.
"Music has in it more elements of educational value than any other single subject, reading only excepted. Music is the greatest of the arts, at the same time it is a great science, but more than either its greatest value lies in its power as a factor in the education of the whole child for the enjoyment of life and a sane constructive citizenship."
"Address of Mrs. Frances E. Clark, National Federation of Music Clubs, St. Louis, Missouri, Nov. 9, 1921." Music Supervisors Journal, December 1921, p. 21.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Philip C. Hayden (1907-09)
Philip Cady Hayden served as the first president of the Music Supervisors National Conference (MSNC) and was instrumental in its formation. Hayden put out a call to music supervisors to attend a meeting in Keokuk, Iowa, where he was the music supervisor at the time. Originally announced as a meeting of the National Education Association (NEA), the gathering in Keokuk was extremely well received by his fellow music supervisors. Hayden was elected president of a new group of members that would later be named the MSNC.
Hayden attended New York University and Oberlin Conservatory. He served as a music instructor in Vermont, Illinois and Quincy, Illinois, as well as the music supervisor in Quincy, prior to accepting the position as music supervisor in Keokuk. He also served as president of the NEA Department of Music in 1899 and was the founder and first editor of the monthly journal School Music from 1900 till his death in 1925.
"The teaching of music, like the teaching of all other branches, should be based on tested and sound educational principles, and the instructor should be first of all a teacher, then a musician."
"Emotional singing refines and ennobles not only for school life but for all life."
Philip C. Hayden, "Music in the Public Schools and Some Elements Essential to Its Success," Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education Association, Saratoga Springs, New York (1892): 531, 536.
"The greatest offering a music teacher can give a community is a class of graduates who can read music, understand, and appreciate it."
Philip C. Hayden, Editorial, School Music 25 (March 1924): 15.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
E. L. Coburn (1909-10)
E.L. Coburn's colleagues remembered him as an optimistic and caring person, an excellent music supervisor who helped others develop their own talents. After beginning his teaching career in Boone, Iowa, he moved to St. Louis about 1905, serving first as music supervisor at McKinley High School, then as head of the music department. He was a member of the founding group who met in Keokuk in 1907 to establish the Music Supervisors National Conference. He later served as the organization's second president.
Coburn was best known for his citywide concerts that combined choral students with professional orchestras. He began these concerts in 1909 with 2,500 students from seventh grade through high school accompanied by the Damrosch Orchestra. The St. Louis Symphony became involved with the project, and by 1915, Coburn estimated that 6,500 students had sung with the Symphony and 10,000 parents had attended concerts. Included on the programs were works such as The Creation, Aida, and Il Trovatore. In April 1920, he became ill after one of these programs and died suddenly from a bleeding ulcer at 59 years of age. Some of his high school students provided music for his funeral, and a friend noted that they reflected his fine work, because they sang exquisitely without a leader.
"It is seen now, as never before, that music is a form of life expression; to deprive the child of which would be to leave him undeveloped and incomplete."
E. L. Coburn, "Music in the United States for the Last Twenty-Five Years," Journal of Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Cincinnati, OH. 3-6 May, 1910, 18.
"I do not like to talk about myself in public, but Mr. Dykema has asked me to give an account of the concert work that has been done under my direction in St. Louis. . . . I was invited by Symphony management to talk before them on the subject of how to interest the public in Symphony music. I suggested, on this occasion, that inasmuch as school children would soon be the adults who would support such organizations, my belief was that the only way to interest them in Symphony music was to play with them rather than at them."
E. L. Coburn, Journal of Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Pittsburgh, PA. 22-26 March 1915, 89.
"The argument in favor of elective chorus singing is that in this way a community can best be served. This would be a true if a community could be made musical through listening. History and experience have taught us that neither communities nor nations have become musical in this way."
E. L. Coburn, Journal of Proceedings of the Eleventh Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Evansville, IN. 8-12 April 1918, 137.
Edward Bailey Birge (1910-11)
Edward Bailey Birge was instrumental in the early development of MSNC. An attendee at the first meeting in Keokuk, he offered up Indianapolis (where he served as the music supervisor) for the subsequent meeting in 1909—a highly successful event that encouraged the fledgling organization to make its creation permanent. He also served as the organization's first treasurer during Philip C. Hayden's term as president.
Birge was active in the organization both during and following his term as president. He was chairman of the editorial board of the Music Educators Journal from 1930-1944 and remained on the board as chairman emeritus from 1944 until his death in 1952. He also was a member of the Music Education Research Council from 1926-1931 and again from 1934-1939. Birge authored History of Public School Music in the United States, published by MSNC in 1928. Still in print, it was the first history of music education in the United States.
Edward Bailey Birge attended Brown University (on a Bartlett Scholarship) and Yale University.
"The music supervisor of today, like the educational problems with which he deals, is a product of evolution .... As this somewhat complex individual looks out upon the world of music, and into the faces of the children and then into his own heart, he is conscious of the vast possibilities which fortune has placed within his reach for helping make America a music-loving nation. He realizes that with great opportunities come great responsibilities."
Edward B. Birge, "Music Appreciation: The Education of the Listener," Music Supervisors Journal 10, no. 4 (March 1924): 18.
"The supervisor should be a reader. The Yearbooks of the National Conference should be in every music teacher's library. Keeping abreast of the times is merely knowing what others are thinking and doing; the reader may disagree with what he is reading, but his disagreement will make him think, and that will make him grow."
Edward B. Birge, "Training of Music Supervisors in Service," Music Supervisors Journal 18, no. 3 (February, 1932): 16.
"Although the subject of music can be studied in isolation, it should not be kept so cloistered as to lose valuable and broadening contacts with related aspects of life belonging to other subjects such as literature, social studies, and science."
Edward B. Birge, "A Basic Program for Music Study Grades 4, 5, 6," Thirty First Yearbook of the Music Educators National Conference. (Chicago: MENC, 1938): 401-02.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Charles A. Fullerton (1911-12)
Charles Alexander Fullerton, who served as MSNC's fourth president, attended the first meeting in Keokuk, Iowa. Fullerton believed that all people should have opportunities to sing, especially in rural areas where music teachers were scarce, and he advocated a method to foster musical singing based on songs rather than note reading.
Former music supervisor Frances Elliott Clark undertook a project at the Victor Talking Machine Company that resulted in the first recording of children's songs from Fullerton's The New Song Book and Music Reader which was published in 1910. Fullerton used the recording as a musical model, developing a teaching process he called the Choir Plan. According to this plan, students gradually progressed from listening to the recording while looking at their books to singing along with the recording, and finally, to singing without the recording. Fullerton claimed that this method was better for helping students become musical, expressive singers in the short amount of time allotted for music classes than teaching them to sight sing note by note. For more than twenty years, he used the model with rural school children and adult classes at Iowa State Teachers College, actively promoting his ideas through writings, presentations, and concerts with rural choirs.
Fullerton attended Iowa State Teachers College and later served there as professor and professor emeritus.
"The aristocratic notion that the mass of the people are to get their music merely as listeners is contrary to experience and contrary to American ideals."
C. A. Fullerton, "An Experiment in School Music," Music Educators Journal 22, No. 5 (December 1936): 26.
"We should abandon the notion that so-called music appreciation can be added to people from the outside—that a community is becoming musical because it has a band and an orchestra, or a glee club and a choir, or that a nation is becoming musical on account of its radios and motion pictures, however helpful these may be; indeed we should accept the fact that the real background for musical growth and appreciation is, as nearly all music educators know, the participation of the individual in the successful recreating of music."
"We should develop music festivals and let the contests fade away .... Music is robbed of much of its charm when it is used merely for beating someone."
C.A. Fullerton, "What of the Second Hundred Years?" Music Educators Journal 24, No. 5 (March 1938): 77.
Henrietta G. Baker Low (1912-13)
Henrietta G. Baker Low was not only the organization's first woman president, but she was also the first president from a non-Midwestern state. Living all her life in Baltimore, Maryland, Baker Low was an integral part of Baltimore music education. Baker Low was instrumental in the establishment of music teacher education courses at Peabody Conservatory and she enlisted the help of a high school principal to establish a joint effort with Peabody so secondary students who wanted to study music did not have to leave secondary school. In 1912, Peabody offered its first teacher-training course, and in 1920, Low advocated making the course equality to other academic courses. The first such program was offered by Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins University in 1927-28.
"I am glad this association stands for improvement in Sunday School music ... A crusade is necessary. I suggest each supervisor go home and call a meeting of Sunday school Committees and through them educate the public concept."
"It is the work of the [music] supervisor to see the lift and shift of [vocal] tone, he must see to that. Pitch high! Sit high! Think high!"
Henrietta G. Baker, Journal of Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, St. Louis, MO. 19-22 March 1912, 46, 76.
"You want your children to have the spirit of optimism, that ought to be a part of a child's education, and what helps to do that as much as music?"
Henrietta G. Baker, Journal of Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Rochester, NY. 7-11 April 1913, 24.
Elizabeth Casterton (1913-14)
Elizabeth Casterton participated actively in MSNC from 1909 through 1917, including her term as its 6th president. She was also active in the National Education Association (NEA) and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) during this time.
In her writings and speeches, Casterton supported musical activities for all school children, the use of music in conjunction with other school subjects, and the study and performance of American music. After attending both the MSNC and MTNA conventions in 1915, Casterton expressed support for a joint meeting of the groups to initiate cooperation in the musical education of youth. She encouraged teachers to use music specifically in the study of nature, geography, history, and literature, and to perform and promote American music whenever possible.
Prior to her retirement from music-related activities in 1916, she served as the supervisor of music in Bay City, Michigan, and in Rochester, New York.
"Music is the thing that, deeper far than all others, sinks into the heart of the child and touches it, touches it and moulds it as nothing else can."
Elizabeth Casterton, Correlation of Music with Other Branches of the School Curriculum. School Music Monthly 5 (September-October 1905): 24.
"The claim has been made for a long time that the music supervisors have been worshipping the fetish of foreign music and foreign composers. . . . It has occurred to me that it might be very well to set aside a portion of the year in which to concentrate upon the study of such American music as would be available and appropriate for our classes . . . By all means let us devote some definite consideration to the Home Made Product this year. What we do may be one of the greatest contributions that could be made toward the future American music and American Music Public."
Elizabeth Casterton, "From Our Retiring President," Music Supervisors Bulletin 1, no. 3 (January 1915): 18, 20.
"After the many days that have elapsed since the Minneapolis meeting, certain impressions have so intensified themselves as to stand out as highlights of the meeting, so to speak. Was not the feeling of goodwill and good-comradeship that prevailed everywhere, one long to be remembered? Every session, every discussion, whether formal or otherwise, seemed permeated with an attitude of good fellowship."
Elizabeth Casterton, "From Our Retiring President," Music Supervisors Bulletin 1, no. 3 (January 1915): 18.
Arthur W. Mason (1914-15)
A founding member at the meeting in Keokuk, Arthur W. Mason was a self-taught pianist who traveled as a musician and studied with various teachers in locations where he worked. His road jobs included working with a family of bell ringers, a theater troupe, and several bands. Although he traveled mostly in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, he journeyed across most of the United States during his three years with a group called the Lizzie Evers Company.
Outside his term as MSNC president, Mason served as president of the Indiana Music Teachers Association and the Kentucky Music Teachers Association. He also worked as the supervisor of music at Columbus Indiana Public Schools, as Associate Director for the Louisville Kentucky Conservatory of Music, and as Director of the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music in Indianapolis, Indiana.
"Educators everywhere are realizing as never before, the value of music in the life of the community and are desirous of placing it where it, of right, belongs in the educational scheme."
"The senses of rhythm and tone which are a part of the equipment of every individual are the sense upon which music is built, and the development of these often neglected senses should claim our best efforts, and when they are once awakened they should be kept thoroughly alive through the entire school life and should be constantly stimulated by hearing the best there is in musical literature."
Arthur W. Mason, "Response by Mr. Arthur W. Mason, President." Journal of Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Pittsburgh, PA. 22-26 March 1915, 21, 22.
Will Earhart (1915-16)
Will Earhart was a visionary leader in the MSNC who ably articulated the philosophical foundations of the organization. He was active in MSNC for almost fifty years and was a founding member, although he missed the first meeting in Keokuk because of Easter church responsibilities. Despite doubts that it could be accomplished, Earhart organized and led an orchestra comprised of conference members at the 1921 MSNC meeting, including Edward Bailey Birge on viola and Osbourne McConathy on French horn. He continued to serve his profession until the end of his life, helping young teachers who sought his advice and writing articles for the Music Educators Journal that supported aesthetic education.
Earhart believed strongly in the value of musical beauty. At the forefront of the aesthetic education movement in the 1940s, Earhart outlined three appeals of music—sensory, mind, and feelings—and believed that all children had the ability to be musical if properly nurtured. According to Earhart, music in the schools was fully justified on aesthetic, intellectual, educational, and social grounds. He believed that music should be studied by all children, not just those who might choose it as a profession, so that they might enjoy it for the rest of their lives. Earhart was also a pioneer in the expansion of the high school music program and of granting credits to students enrolled in music courses.
Earhart worked as music teacher in Franklin and Miamisburg, Ohio, music supervisor in Greenville, Ohio and Richmond, Indiana, and director of music for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, schools. He was founder and administrator for the Department of Public School Music at the University of Pittsburgh. He also served as a member of the MSNC High School Music Committee, and as chairman of the MSNC Educational and Research Councils.
"The moral is to lead all pupils to sing, to play, to make up music, and to listen to much good music, as in concerts; but before you have them listen, be sure they have developed the organic appreciational apparatus to listen with, for ears alone will not suffice."
Will Earhart, "Factors of Musical Appeal and Pupil Responses to Them," Music Supervisors Journal 7, no. 2 (December 1930): 24.
"All music, even that which ably functions toward its chosen specific ends, holds a precious element that speaks to some divination within us of more distant and lofty ends which it bids us go forth and seek."
Will Earhart, "Music and Function," Music Educators Journal 31, no. 1 (September-October 1944): 15.
"A failure in music education is teaching that subject in a vacuum and not connecting it with other human interests and experiences — this means having no philosophy on the subject."
Will Earhart, "What is Music For?" Music Educators Journal 44, no. 6 (June-July 1958): 25.
"If we can discern the beautiful soul of Music, through all her disguises, and discern the beautiful thing that is the soul of Childhood, under all its complex appearances, and if we can then unite the two, we will have performed what we believe is a worthy task, and one that is full of promise for man and for music as a valuable element in the life of man."
Speaking at the 1950 MENC National Biennial Conference in St. Louis, MO.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Peter W. Dykema (1916-17)
Peter Dykema was an important force in the growth of MSNC and the music education profession. Although he was not one of the founding members of the organization, he attended his first convention in 1908 and was listed as a new member in 1913. That year, he addressed the organization at the request of then-president Henrietta Baker Low, reading a paper called "The Effect of the Festival and Pageant Revival on the Teaching of Music." Previously, Dykema had been active in the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and the National Education Association (NEA) Department of Music Education.
After his 1913 speech, Dykema quickly became an active member in the organization, and remained involved after his presidential term concluded in 1917. He is perhaps best known for his position as editor of MSNC's journal, first called The Bulletin and renamed the Music Supervisors Journal in 1915. Dykema used the publication to keep members informed about the profession and the organization, writing frequent columns about such topics as community singing, musical tests, new movements in music education, and issues within the organization.
Although Dykema did not have a formal music degree, he organized choirs at all of the schools where he worked, included arts in his classes, and promoted music education in his faculty positions at the university level. When he taught high school English, he included a unit on arts education, and he developed one of the first music appreciation courses in the country. During his tenure at Teachers College, Columbia University, he increased music education course requirements for the master's degree and helped develop the first doctoral program in the music education department.
"The music teacher has got to look forward to the time when the children will swarm about the room almost like so many ants, instead of sitting in straight aisles like so many wooden puppets."
Peter Dykema, "The Effect of the Festival and Pageant Revival on the Teaching of Music," Journal of the Proceedings of the Sixth Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, (Rochester, New York: The Conference, 1913): 70.
"We suggest that there be devoted two pages in the Journal for the free discussion throughout the year of every side of this problem. . . . If there be such agreement that we can begin with next year to put this into effect, well and good. If there must be another year for discussion, well and good. Eventually, we must work out a plan which shall make our conferences more valuable than they are at present."
Peter Dykema, "The Future of the Conference," Music Supervisors Journal 10, No. 5 (May 1924): 28.
"Eventually, I believe, one valuable measure of the success of all teaching will be the voluntary continuing of it by the student .... Music must be so attractive that people will want to have it for its own sake rather than because it will make them wiser or more socially prominent."
Peter Dykema, "Music in Community Life," Music Supervisors Journal 20, No. 4 (March 1934): 35.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Charles H. Miller (1917-18)
Charles H. Miller was director of music in the Rochester Public Schools for twenty-one years, retiring in 1938. During his career, he taught public school music methods at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Rutgers University, and the Eastman School of Music. As a founding member of MSNC, he served as the organization's Secretary in 1915, President in 1918, and as a member of the Music Education Research Council at its inception in 1918. Prior to his tenure at the Eastman School, Miller was the Supervisor of Music in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he pioneered including voice training classes as a regular part of the high school curriculum. He later developed the Rochester Music Guild, which grew to include choral and orchestral groups of professional stature.
His obituary in the June 3, 1955, Rochester Times-Union stated, "Mr. Miller has been credited by local educators with paying the most significant role in the early development of the school music program." When he became director the program consisted of only two orchestras and two glee clubs and employed eight teachers. At his retirement in 1938, some 75 teachers were directing scores of orchestras and choirs. At the time of his retirement, Mr. Miller was credited by his successor, Spouse, with several major innovations in developing the Rochester school music program. One of these was the plan under which the late George Eastman, a close friend of Mr. Miller, donated instruments for free use by school pupils learning to play.
"The leaders in this great world war say that the coming generation must not be crippled by cutting out any of the vital educational advantages. They have also shown that they consider music of more importance than any other thing in sustaining the morale of the soldiers. It should warm the heart of every supervisor to know that he is considered so vital to our nation's welfare."
Music Supervisors Journal, Nov. 1917
Osbourne G. McConathy (1918-19)
During Osbourne G. McConathy's term as MSNC president, he worked diligently to promote both the organization and music education as a whole. At the 1919 conference at St. Louis, McConathy argued forcefully for music education in America's schools. "Every child should be educated in music according to his natural capacities, at public expense," McConathy said, "and his studies should function in the musical life of the community." McConathy's call to action gave rise to the phrase, "Music for every child, and every child for music," MENC's mission throughout the decade of the 1920s.
Years later, McConathy recalled that the program of the Conference in 1919 was definitely directed toward a specific movement to make music function as a part of human life, an influence in American life toward better relations between human beings, by enabling each pupil in our schools to find and develop that phase of music best fitted to his own individual needs, capacities, and interests. McConathy's words reflected the new and powerful Progressive Education Movement whose aim was to improve the whole of society through education.
McConathy served in leadership roles for numerous councils and societies, both within MSNC and with organizations such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the Kentucky Education Association. He worked as music teacher and supervisor in Illinois, Kentucky, and New York. McConathy was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music by American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois, in 1938.
"Our children should be thoroughly taught the principles of music, and to such a degree of perfection as to enable them to read of a piece of music with as much ease and readiness as they would read a lesson in prose."
Mark, Michael L., and Charles L. Gary. A History of American Music Education, 2d ed. Reston, VA: MENC. (1999): 169.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Hollis E. Dann (1919-20)
Hollis E. Dann was at the forefront of early efforts to develop music education in the United States. Working actively as a founding member of the MSNC Education Council, Dann composed some of the first recommendations for collegiate courses of study to prepare music supervisors. He also developed his own music course, first published by the American Book Company in 1912.
Outside his involvement with MSNC, Dann served as chairman of the Music Council of the State of New York and the Music Examinations committee for the New York State Board of Regents. In addition, he directed the Glee Club at Cornell University for 32 years and was the Pennsylvania State Director of Music from 1921-1924. Following his work in Pennsylvania, he served as Head of the Department of Music Education at New York University from 1925-1936.
"Let us strive for power and skill to discover and develop the God-given musical capacities which our children possess."
DeJarnette, Reven S. , "Holis Ellsworth Dann, music educator." Ed. D. diss., New York University (1939): iv.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
John W. Beattie (1920-21)
Although he was a history major, John W. Beattie took his first job as a music teacher in 1907. Believing that children in all grades should have the opportunity to study instrumental music, he implemented after-school violin classes. By 1917, free instruction beginning in the fifth grade was offered on any band or orchestral instrument in his school district.
Beattie went on to work as supervisor of music in the Evanston, Illinois, and Xenia, Ohio, School Districts. He also served as the dean of the Northwestern University School of Music and as director of the Evanston, Illinois, Music Placement Bureau.
As president of MSNC, Beattie presided over a period of heavy membership growth. Following his term as president, Beattie remained active with the organization, participating in a 14-week tour of South American countries with Louis Woodson Curtis, another former MSNC president. Curtis and Beattie visited South American schools, conservatories, and libraries to bring music back to the U.S. for use in schools and to facilitate an international exchange of music education ideas.
"The surest certainty of success in the tomorrow lies in the sometimes unromantic but always necessary activity of today."
Edwards, Larry Wayne, "John Walter Beattie, 1885-1962 [microfilm]: pragmatic music educator." Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan (1971): 183
"There is a job to be done by us all, not in some roseate-hued dream world, but here and now. The better we do that work, the more certain we may be of the future. What we shall be able to accomplish in years to come depends upon the success with which we cope with the problems of today."
Edwards, Larry Wayne, "John Walter Beattie, 1885-1962 [microfilm]: pragmatic music educator." Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan (1971): 183
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Frank A. Beach (1921-22)
While Frank A. Beach began his collegiate studies at the University of Michigan pursuing a general business course, he included music in his studies as well. The combination of his experience in both music and business later served him well, both as president of MSNC during a period of large growth in membership, and as director of the Department of Music at the State Teachers College in Emporia, Kansas (later Emporia State University).
Beach was an early user of technology in the classroom. Through his program at Emporia State, he developed a series of phonographic records with explanatory lectures on music in an effort to bring music to the surrounding rural areas in Kansas.
Prior to his term as president of MSNC, Beach served as the president of the Kansas State Music Teachers Association.
"We are fortunately favored with a wealth of talent in the matter of speakers—men and women who will assure the realization of our aims, namely, the building of more of education into our music structure and more music into the educational structure of the South."
Music Educators Journal, Feb. 22
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1992
Karl W. Gehrkens (1922-23)
Karl W. Gehrkens was a pioneer in the field of music education. He was one of the first proponents of teaching music beginning with music, as opposed to abstractly with scales and intervals. In addition, at the request of the MSNC Educational Council, Gehrkens formulated the first well-balanced course for the preparation of music teachers and saw it approved by not only the Council but also—after much opposition—his own conservatory.1 As such, he created the first four-year course of study in music education at Oberlin College Conservatory—a program that would be emulated by many other institutions throughout the nation.
Gehrkens was a very active member of MSNC. As president, he presided over a period of large growth in membership. The second regional division of MSNC, the Southern Division, was formed during his tenure as president. He also published a series of three letters in the Music Educators Journal for music educators to use in their advocacy efforts on the local level. He served as a founding member of the MSNC Educational Council and participated as a member of many other councils. He was at the forefront of the movement to rename MSNC to Music Educators National Conference, arguing that the conference name had a turn-of-the-century ring to it.
1 In Memoriam: Karl W. Gehrkens. Music Educators Journal (May 1975), 30-31.
"I believe that music teaching in the public schools of America offers the most glorious, the most inspiring opportunity for inculcating a love of the beautiful in the minds of all children of all people that has ever existed. On the music side we have a subject in which practically all persons have an instinctive interest no matter what their station in life and largely irrespective of any future vocational interest. No other subject makes such a universal appeal; everyone loves music, everyone wants to hear it, and most people want to take part in it."
Music Supervisors Journal, Oct. 1922
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
W. Otto Miessner (1923-24)
W. Otto Miessner was an outspoken leader within the organization. A founding member of the MSNC Educational Council, he worked with its members to present the very first curriculum outline for vocal music.
As president, Miessner was best known for his speech at the 1924 national conference in Cincinnati on the subject of Man- or Machine-Made Music. In this prophetic look at the future, Miessner predicted the rise of what he dubbed radio-television. "This means," he said, "that you will be able to see these artists as well as hear them in your own home, at the same time as they are performing." While early experiments in what we now call "television" were already underway, Miessner's remarks proved surprisingly prescient. Miessner extolled the virtues of radio technology, observing that the sound from his own radio receiver was often superior to the acoustics in a concert hall. But at the same time, Miessner's speech was a passionate call to roll music education back to a time when small groups of supervisors and teachers could gather in a place like Keokuk to discuss the latest trends and developments over lemonade in the parlor with a piano playing in the background.
Miessner worked as music teacher in Connersville and Oak Park, Illinois schools and the Milwaukee State Teachers College. He served as Chairman of the University of Kansas Department of Music. He also authored many music publications, including teaching methods and music history. Miessner was also famous for the brand of pianos that he developed.
"Every child should have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument—including the piano, because it is a good foundation, indeed, the best, for learning to play any instrument."
Miller, Samuel Dixon, "W. Otto Miessner and his contributions to music in American schools." Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan. (1962): 166.
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
William Breach (1924-25)
William Breach served as president of MSNC during a period of great membership growth. At the 1925 conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Breach reported the organization's membership had topped 3,000, more than double the 1,242 members reported at the 1920 conference.
"We realize that there are many Supervisors in the country who still need to be convinced that it is essential for them to become members of the National Conference. If the community in which we live is giving us its backing it has the right to expect to be represented in the National Conference. We hope to see the day when school officials will consider that a supervisor has failed to meet all necessary professional requirements when he has failed to line himself up with the National organization representing his special field."
Music Educators Journal, March 1925
Edgar B. Gordon (1925-26)
As president, Edgar B. Gordon served MSNC during a time of great change: a dramatic growth in membership, the successes of the Eastern Division as a regional group of music supervisors, and the formation of the South Western Division. Gordon began active efforts to unite the organization's members. At the 1926 conference his efforts resulted in the adoption of the Biennial Compromise, establishing the national conferences in even years alternating with division conferences in odd years. The compromise led to the reconciliation of MSNC with its Eastern Division members, who rejoined MSNC at the first biennial conference in Chicago in 1928.
Edgar B. Gordan, an important force in the development of the use of radio in music education, opened the way for mass media music education. He developed a music series under the title "Let's Sing," later titled "On Wings of Songs," in which children learned to sing little songs and later used them in learning rote to note music. As a music supervisor, he was concerned with the needs for a greatly enriched program of extra-curricular music.
"Music Educators should bridge the gap between music taught and the better popular music, by making youth conscious that art constantly reflects change, and that an interest in popular music is both natural and desirable. Music educators should use the increased musical understanding developed by radio and movies to their advantage."
Angevine, Brian G., ˜Dear Pop, a biography of Edgar B. Gordon [microform]." PH.D. diss., University of Kansas. (1985): 152.
George Oscar Bowen (1926-28)
George Oscar Bowen was the first MENC president to serve a two-year term, a tradition that continues today. Speaking at the first biennial conference in Chicago in 1928, Bowen called for a revision of the organization's mission. He suggested "not Music for Every Child, but rather the right kind and amount of music for every child in proportion to his capacity. Let us stop teaching music the easy way and inaugurate the right way of music teaching. No music educational system based on a flat indiscriminate course can ever hope to succeed in making music a vital and meaningful subject. Every child has an inalienable right to the music education which best meets his nature and needs. This cannot be done with the grade basis of music teaching, and since we cannot change the child's musical nature, I suggest that we change his instruction."
"Recently a very talented and practical musician, a recorder and demonstrator of the mechanically played piano, said that one of our great mistakes in education lies in the fact that we have trained children too much in self-culture, so that others will enjoy them, instead of training them to enjoy the culture, the beauty and sweetness in others, and in things. We love a beautiful picture because of the reaction we get from the soul of the artist who created it. Is it what we hear in the music of the master, the thing which was put into it from the depths of his soul, that makes its appeal to our souls. But, there must have been a preparation within ourselves in order that we might appreciate and recognize the work of art when it comes to our notice. From our earliest school days, and earlier if possible, good music should constantly be kept before children, if we would have them absorb it and make it a part of their everyday life. That is culture, not superficial, not something to be put on as we would apply cosmetics to improve upon nature, but something that is within us, and which we wear within our innermost self."
President's Address before the first Biennial Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference, Chicago, April 16, 1928. Music Supervisors Journal, May 1928.
Mabelle Glenn (1928-30)
After teaching in Monmouth, Galesburg, and Bloomington, Illinois, and at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Mabelle Glenn became director of music in Kansas City and built a leading big-city music education system. In addition to being the founding president of the MSNC Southern Division, receiving honorary degrees, and coauthoring of The Psychology of School Music Teaching with James Mursell, she created the World of Music series, which contained a complete sequential system of teaching notation using concepts from Emile Jaques-Dalcroze.
"Though music in its several phases, singing, eurhythmics, and instrument playing, probably has greater possibilities in creative production than has any other subject in the school program, we have been so concerned with the acquiring of skill and in acquiring factual knowledge that often we have lost sight of the importance of joyous experience in self-expression."
"In creative work it is the act of producing, not the product, which interest the real teacher. One must keep in mind that any new experience directed from 'within' is creative as far as the individual child is concerned though that same creation may have been experienced previously by hundreds. The joy to that child is as keen as though he were the first to make the discovery."
Music Supervisors Journal, May 1929
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986
Russell V. Morgan (1930-32)
Russell Van Dyke Morgan took the helm of MSNC at a time of change in the organization. Under his watch, MSNC hired its first Executive Secretary, Clifford Buttelman, in the summer of 1930. Soon after, the organization leased its first office space in Chicago. Morgan was also the presiding president for the organization's Silver Celebration at the national conference in Cleveland in 1932.
Morgan was an active member in MSNC outside his time as president. He served as a member of the Editorial Board and the Music Education Research Council, with a term as chairman of the latter. There never was a year, from the time of his induction into the organization in 1916 until the very time of his passing, that he was not enlisted in some large or small project of the organization.
"The true essence of art values in music is closely tied in with the creative program; and where such a program is not in operation, it is to be expected that the musical experience will be largely sterile and uninteresting. The primary purpose in music education is to have human beings thrill to the power and pleasure of music, and music must become an avenue of expression and creative experience for every individual."
Music Educators Journal, May-June 1949
"The democracy of America holds that the great things of beauty should be in the possession of every man no matter what his economic or social state in the community. To this end America has placed music in the educational curriculum of our public school system and has constantly supported every attempt to expand the lives of all our children by sensitizing their souls to the great beauty that resides in all the fine arts."
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1996
Walter H. Butterfield (1932-34)
Walter H. Butterfield's music education came largely from private teachers in New England. His father was one of the leading music educators of his day, so it was only natural that Butterfield would follow in his footsteps. He took summer courses at Cornell and New York University and returned to teach at both institutions later in his life. He also taught at Rhode Island College of Education (where he received his doctorate), was head of music at Rutgers, and was a member of the Music Committee at Brown University.
In addition to his membership and presidency of MSNC, Butterfield was a member of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing and a charter member of the New England Music Festival Association. He served as conductor of countless All-State and All-Region Honor Ensembles.
"Yet, with all sympathy for the teacher or supervisor who is temporarily 'at liberty' we must keep in mind the fact that, according to reliable reports, our profession is among those least affected by unemployment. The taxpayers want to—must—save money. But they do not want less music."
"We have heard much of 'efficiency' but probably none of us has become too efficient. We shall need to be more efficient this year to carry on successfully under a rigid economic program. Nevertheless, the students want more music, the schools need more and better music, and the communities can enjoy more music from the schools; let us give it to them."
Music Educators Journal, October 1932
Herman F. Smith (1934-36)
"As one reviews this decade [the 1930s], it would seem that the pervading aspect of the over-all Conference activities of the period was to securely establish music as a fundamental in the general education program... The many years of struggle for recognition had been won, and now it behooved the members of the Conference to redirect their thinking, their efforts, and their activities to so shape the music program that its effectiveness would prove through the years the inherent values of music in the general school curriculum."
Music Educators Journal, June-July 1950.
Joseph E. Maddy (1936-38)
Joseph E. Maddy played viola with the Minneapolis Symphony after college and then taught at several colleges before going to Rochester, New York in 1918. He took over the Richmond High School Orchestra in 1920 and became music supervisor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1924. After creating the National High School Orchestra, he founded the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, later adding the Interlochen Arts Academy; the Interlochen Arts Academy is today one of the premier arts and music camps in the world. Maddy received the Educator of the Year award at the 1958 meeting of the American Association for School Administrators.
"It is safe to state that the whole face of music education in America has been changed by the advent of instrumental music in the public schools. It is quite probable that much of the vocal music teaching would not have survived the depression had not the activity in instrumental music centered public and administrative attention on school music, and spurred the vocal directors to greater achievements than had previously seemed possible."
Music Supervisors Journal, March 1932
Music Educators Hall of Fame 1986