There is however an _Americanism_ that is hard to define, but is the result of the intermingling of all nationalities. It is the spirit of the pioneer that sent our forefathers, foreigners many, across the plains in the “covered wagon”; the spirit of youth and enthusiasm of a country still new; the spirit that works out gigantic commercial problems and miraculous inventions with the same fervor with which an artist creates; it is the spirit of an inspired sculptor before the unfinished block of marble. All of which must combine in our music before we can create a national idiom. But we must go back and travel with you the rocky road,—“Music in America.” PILGRIMS AND PURITANS The Pilgrims and Puritans who reached our “stern and rock-bound coast” early in the 17th century did not approve of music, except for the singing of five hymn tunes! The first book printed in America was the _Bay Psalm Book_ (1640) at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its heading was: “The Psalmes in Metre: Faithfully translated for the Use, Edification, and comfort of the Saints in publick and private, especially in New England.” “Spiritual Songs” were not at first included, but later about fifty English hymn tunes, sung in unison were used. It went into many editions, found its way to England and Scotland, and was preferred by many to all others. Music was forbidden as a trade in New England and a dancing master was fined for trying to start a class. The early settlers thought “to sing man’s melody is only a vain show of art” and objected to tunes because “they are inspired”! So the Puritans were forbidden to invent new tunes. You can understand that an art could not easily flourish in such stony ground. Mr. Oscar G. Sonneck, an authority on the history of American music, says in his book, _Early Concert-life in America_: “The Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Irish, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swedes, the Cavaliers of Maryland and Virginia and the Huguenots of the South may have been zealots, adventurers, beggars, spendthrifts, fugitives from justice, convicts, but barbarians they certainly were not.... Possibly, or even probably, music was at an extremely low ebb, but this would neither prove that the early settlers were hopelessly unmusical nor that they lacked interest in the art of ‘sweet conchord.’... What inducements had a handful of people, spread over so vast an area, struggling for an existence, surrounded by virgin forests, fighting the Redman, and quarreling amongst themselves, to offer to musicians? We may rest assured that even Geoffrey Stafford, ‘lute and fiddle maker’ by trade and ruffian by instinct, would have preferred more lucrative climes and gracefully declined the patronage of musical Governor Fletcher had he not been deported in 1691 to Massachusetts by order of his Majesty King William, along with a batch of two hundred other Anglo-Saxon convicts.