There is no reason why we should not follow this same principle. Of course it will not be necessary to confine ourselves to German folk-songs, although these are on the whole the best. We are a mixed people, compounded of all nationalities, and hence the folk-songs of Italy, France, Scotland, Russia and various other countries should all be acclimated in our schools. There is something peculiarly healthy and fresh about folk-songs which one only finds again in the very highest efforts of individual creative genius. They are like flowers that have grown up in virgin forests, nurtured by rain and sunshine, fanned by vigorous breezes and shielded from all the hot-house influences of a morbid civilization. So rich and spontaneous are many of these melodies that they can be thoroughly enjoyed even when sung without harmony or accompaniment, while for advanced classes it is easy to write second and third vocal parts, thus adding to their interest and value. While early familiarity with the best of these songs would have a good effect in refining the popular sense of melody, the appreciation of what came last and is highest in music--of harmonic progressions--could best be taught by a similar familiarity with the German four-part chorals. They are the very embodiment of vigorous, soul-stirring harmony, the basis of sacred, as the _Volkslied_ is of secular, music. "Each of our churches," says Thibaut, the author of the celebrated little book on _Purity in Musical Art_, "had a period of the highest enthusiasm, which will never return, and each of them has at this very period of the most ardent religious zeal done its utmost for the development of its song." The German choral is the result of the intense devotional feelings which existed among the early Protestant congregations, and it is evident that a wholesome religious spirit could with it be introduced in our schools in a manner which could be objectionable to no denomination. In course of time these chorals might then be transferred to our churches, where they might well take the place of the easier but very eccentric melodies and incorrect harmonies now too often heard there. HENRY T. FINCK. OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. A SUCCESSFUL ENTERPRISE.