which is utterly without regard to the broader interests of the people. The true condition of affairs is made evident to-day by the fact that when a resident of any moderate-sized prosperous American city starts to inaugurate some local musical enterprise for the benefit of the whole community, and calling for the entire community's support, he learns that the concert and recital life of his city, its 'musical world,' reaches and is supported by but from three to five per cent. of the entire population. The other ninety-five to ninety-seven per cent. find the regular musical events beyond their means, as well as beyond the facts of their culture, though in the latter respect America is now rapidly learning that the enjoyment of the best music is far less dependent upon special education than has commonly been supposed. Meanwhile, by phonograph and player-piano, by newspaper and magazine, by high-class municipal concerts and occasional chance glimpses into the world of greater musical possibilities, the mass of the people have begun to become awakened to the existence of the larger musical world which they do not see and the larger musical life which they do not share, and to crave participation in it. Finally, therefore, we have the spectacle of an American 'musical world' which is no longer true to American conditions and which does not serve the people. In short, we have finally come face to face with the problem of the reaction of musical art and democracy. With this question the nation has of late begun to deal in no half-hearted or uncertain manner. In fact, the national response to this situation involves the greatest American musical movement of the day. In its earlier phase the question asked was: Will the people, under democracy, rise to the accepted standards of musical culture? A negative answer to this question has been generally entertained, and among cultured people it has been commonly supposed that democracy would drag down the standards of musical culture. That a wholly new and multifold phase of musical life would arise to meet the requirements of a civilization such as that of America seems to have been earlier suspected or foreseen only by a few thinking students of conditions, who recognized the fact that the exact meeting of the mass, as it became more enlightened, with the conditions of traditional musical culture was not the solution which was to be expected or even desired. The plain fact was that the people at large were not enjoying the benefits, the pleasure, recreation, or inspiration, as the case might be, of all that the world prizes as music in any of its forms above that of popular songs and dances. Neither the educational system, on the one hand, nor the cultural system, on the other, provided them with it. One merely gave a little elementary training of the most primitive sort, and for a short time, to children, and the other did not reach beyond the extremely restricted sphere of culture and wealth.