Edward MacDowell _Frontispiece_ Edgar Stillman Kelley 57 Harvey Worthington Loomis 77 Ethelbert Nevin 92 John Philip Sousa 112 Henry Schoenefeld 128 John Knowles Paine 145 Horatio W. Parker 174 Frank van der Stucken 188 George Whitefield Chadwick 210 Arthur Foote 221 Henry K. Hadley 241 Adolph M. Foerster 248 Charles Crozat Converse 256 Louis Adolphe Coerne 262 Henry Holden Huss 291 Harry Rowe Shelley 304 Frederick Field Bullard 351 Homer A. Norris 357 Frederic Grant Gleason 367 William H. Sherwood 383 A.J. Goodrich 388 Wilson G. Smith 395 Mrs. H.H.A. Beach 426 Margaret Ruthven Lang 432 CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN COMPOSERS. CHAPTER I. A GENERAL SURVEY. Coddling is no longer the chief need of the American composer. While he still wants encouragement in his good tendencies,--much more encouragement than he gets, too,--he is now strong enough to profit by the discouragement of his evil tendencies. In other words, the American composer is ready for criticism. The first and most vital flaw of which his work will be accused is the lack of nationalism. This I should like to combat after the sophistic fashion of Zeno,--showing, first, why we lack that desideratum, a strictly national school; secondly, that a strictly national school is not desirable; and thirdly, that we most assuredly have a national school.