I approach Schubert, our fourth high-priest, whose ministrations, coming in conjunction with those of Beethoven, make their epoch the most remarkable one in music's career, with wonder for his achievements and regret for his half-lived life. That which was so beautifully said of Keats, "Life of a long life condensed to a mere drop, and fallen like a tear upon the world's cheek, to make it burn forever," would apply equally to Schubert. He was born into a period that had already manifested lyric tendencies, but he was an inexhaustible spring, from which limpid melody gushed in ever-increasing volume, filling his every musical scheme to repletion. Nature made Schubert the greatest musical genius the world has seen, and had his life but reached completeness, he would, perhaps, have drawn from his emotional well-spring greater symphonies than the "C major" and the "Unfinished." Schubert was virtually the originator of the modern song, which has been, and always will be, a great solace to mankind. It is at the same time the most practical, because the most easily understood, means of educating musical instinct into sympathy with the spirit that pervades more elaborate forms. The associated texts make clear their musical import, and the appreciation of one really good composition places us on a vantage-ground from which we can better comprehend others. Schubert required the song as a ready outlet for his lyric productiveness, and wrote twelve hundred of them without redundancies and with always definite and distinguishing significance. Many gifted composers have put their most felicitous fancies into this fireside form, but although some have sung more impassionedly, and others have placed their melodies in richer settings, no one has been so uniformly adequate as Franz Schubert. Schumann, Franz, and Jensen always please, and they often excite our wonder by the beauty and adaptability of their song conceptions, but Schubert's songs do not express, they embody, moods and sentiments. His flow of melody was so fresh and strong that in instrumental compositions it often carried him to uncommon length. The Germans call his C major symphony "The Symphony of Heavenly Length." This phrase quite aptly describes the work, for an idea of its proportions, and of the quality which prevents them from being prohibitory, are both voiced by the expressive adjective employed, Schubert scarcely lived to maturity, but he dispensed such unalloyed benefits that his name will be forever enshrined in the hearts of those who love pure music. During all this time culture had been making great strides, and a comprehensive glance, at the time of Schubert's death, would have revealed all Europe aflood with musical enthusiasm. Orchestras were multiplied and improved, grand chorus organizations were founded, and institutions for the education of musical aspirants were established under the patronage of various governments.