Let us first regard the general article _Music_. In that division of the article entitled, _Recent Music_—that is, music during the last sixty or seventy-five years—we find the following astonishing division of space: recent German music receives just eleven lines; recent French music, thirty-eight lines, or less than half a column; recent Italian music, nineteen lines; recent Russian music, thirteen lines; and recent British music, _nearly four columns, or two full pages_! Regard these figures a moment. That period of German musical composition which embraced such men as Humperdinck, Richard Strauss, Karl Goldmark, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Bruch, Reinecke, and von Bülow, is allotted only eleven lines, and only two of the above names are even mentioned! And yet modern British music, which is of vastly lesser importance, is given _thirty-five times_ as much space as modern German music, and _ten times_ as much space as modern French music! In these figures we have an example of prejudice and discrimination which it would be hard to match in any other book or music in existence. It is unnecessary to criticise such bias: the figures themselves are more eloquently condemning than any comment could possibly be. And it is to this article on recent music, with its almost unbelievable distortions of relative importance, that thousands of Americans will apply for information. Furthermore, in the article _Opera_ there is no discussion of modern realistic developments, and the names of Puccini and Charpentier are not even included! In the biographies of English composers is to be encountered the same sort of prejudice and exaggeration. Sterndale Bennett, the inferior British Mendelssohn, is given nearly a column, and in the criticism of him we read: “The principal charm of Bennett’s compositions (not to mention his absolute mastery of the musical form) consists in the tenderness of their conception, rising occasionally to sweetest musical intensity.” Turning from Bennett, the absolute master of form, to William Thomas Best, the English organist, we find nearly a half-column biography of fulsome praise, in which Best is written down as an “all-round musician.” Henry Bishop receives two-thirds of a column. “His melodies are clear, flowing, appropriate and often charming; and his harmony is always pure, simple and sweet.” Alfred Cellier is accorded nearly half a column, in which we are told that his music was “invariably distinguished by elegance and refinement.” Frederick Cowen also wrote music which was “refined”; and in his three-fourths-of-a-column biography it is stated that “he succeeds wonderfully in finding graceful expression for the poetical idea.” John Field infused “elegance” into his music. His biography is over half a column in length, and we learn that his nocturnes “remain all but unrivaled for their tenderness and dreaminess of conception, combined with a continuous flow of beautiful melody.”