Article: Letter from Jerome Hopkins on Benefits of Vocal Instruction

“To the Editors of the Evening Post:

 

Many and various have been the means proposed for the amelioration of the middle classes. [Lists various activities, including lectures, dances, etc.] In fact, if I am not mistaken, every possible religious and non-religiou agent has been called upon, and exercised by organized forces to effect the desired ‘moral elevation’ of the said classes, excepting only the agent of music. I do not mean listening to music, but the exercise of producing it.

 

It has long been a matter of surprise to me that in view of the almost universal susceptibility of the working clases to vocal instruction, the enjoyability and exhilaration of this simple exercise—choral singing—and the extreme economy of choral schools when compared with other schools of whatever kind, none ofour many philanthropists have yet been known to suggest such a thing as the foundation of rudimentary vocal schools, to occupy our working population from suppertime to bed-time, and to keep them out of the haunts of dissipation during the hours which would otherwise be devoted to the preparation for the Tombs or the Penitentiary.

 

Our upper classes visit Europe, and on returning can go into ecstasies over the singing festivals at Cologne and Düsseldorf, or at London, Manchester and Birmingham; but the possibility of such grand performances in their own country never seems to enter their heads. Our ecclesiastical enthusiasts uniformly confess their delight at hearing the colossal chorus of eight thousand charity children under the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, the boy choirs of English churches, and the alla capella choirs of St. Petersburg, but when asked why church influence should not be exerted to the same end here, these ‘liberal’ worthies shake their incredulous heads and generally give the very sensible(?) [sic, there is a question mark] reason that ‘what never has been done (in America) never can be done!’

 

I beg to enter an earnest prtest against an inactivity relating to music wholly inconsistent with the spirit of the age, and unworthy of our enterprising community. Nor have I yet heard of one solitary good reason hy the same refining art should not be made subservient to the same noble services in our own country as it is abroad. On suggesting such a possibility to influential persons here, I have usually been met with the reply that ‘merely to start the training-schools would require vast amounts of money.’

 

As a rejoinder to this, I can testify to the fact that the Orpheon Free Schools which I founded ten years ago have not cost over $2,000 per annum, while, with my very limited resources, over six thousand persons have since then received vocal rudimentary notation instruction in them.

 

I, therefore, beg to call the attention, especially of the Christian public, to these facts, and if there be any clergyman, evangelical or otherwise, who is open to conviction on this point, and will place his Sunday-school rooms at the disposal o fmyself and colleagues (rent free), once a week, I will open and maintain free singing schools for the masses in all such rooms, and shall ask no money from church or city for the expenses. I make this offer in no idle or vainglorious spirit. Any true reformer would gladly sink ‘self’ if his object could thereby be attained; but in a time like the present, and in a city like ours, individuality cannot be lost sight of, and some one must take the lead.

 

I adjure all true thinkers among the more advanced in civilization of our reverened fathers to consider this offer, as it is certainly the first of the kind they have ever had, and may be the last they will received. I shall be most happy to accept enlightenment on this subject from any documents addresses 711 Broadway.

 

Respectfully, Jerome Hopkins.

New York, Sept. 29, 1871.”