The Boston Symphony Orchestra is something more than half a century old. More notable than the span of its years is its place in the growth of musical America. In 1881, the late Major Henry L. Higginson realized the first dream and aspiration of his life by founding in Boston an orchestra of European standards, a phenomenon then unknown in America. The idea had come to him as a student in Vienna. It was an ambitious dream of an impecunious young man but after many years, having made his fortune as a banker, he was able to give the Boston Symphony Orchestra to the world. He engaged the finest musicians in Europe and brought to this country a succession of the greatest conductors of their time. He set a new precedent by exacting of the musicians entire devotion of their talent to the orchestra. He gave entire artistic freedom to the conductor. The wisdom of these policies soon showed as each conductor expended his genius to the cumulative improvement of an ensemble which soon had the world’s attention. The present director is the famous Dr. Serge Koussevitsky who began in 1924, and his term as conductor has extended far beyond any single term of the ten previous conductors. The long association of such an orchestra with such a leader is eloquently justified by the results. The great Russian conductor has brought new beauties to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a fresh importance and distinction reflected in the greatly enlarged public. The festivals and special choral concerts, the broadened repertory, new and old, of the regular concerts and the quality of each performance are as indefinable as the genius which directs them. After you have viewed the auditorium and the huge organ, almost directly across the street on the corner of Gainsboro and Huntington Avenue, we find the famous New England Conservatory of Music The New England Conservatory of Music was founded in 1867. Hand in hand with the development of modern America, it soon reached a leading position among music schools in this country. Students from many parts of the world have come to this seat of musical learning and, again, have departed with a thorough technical and artistic training in their possession. The school buildings are especially adapted for the many details of thorough musical instruction. There are three concert halls, with a total seating capacity of over 2,000; a large library, with many rare volumes; a fine concert organ and fourteen other organs for teaching and practice purposes; and, added to these, seventy-five class rooms and private studios. A walk through the buildings confirms the impression that here is a veritable beehive of musical activity. From the Conservatory of Music, we cross Huntington Avenue once more and continue about one block south, reaching the Boston Opera House