Religion being the dominant factor in this stream of social influence which flowed through America, and the Bible standing as the chief and final authority on all matters of life, music, the ever-willing handmaid of every human institution asking her assistance, was naturally drafted into the exclusive service of the church. The first singing books were psalm books; the first singing schools were organized for the purpose of the instruction and training of church congregations and church choirs. I Private instruction in music was unknown for more than a century after the settlement of the country. In 1673 the British Commissioner for the Plantations reported that there were no 'musicians by trade' in the United States. Indeed, it was not until 1730 that an advertisement appears of a music teacher. In that year a newspaper in Charleston, S. C., printed a notice that John Salter was teaching music in a young ladies' boarding school conducted by his wife. It is true that some of the psalm-books contained hints for singing, but these were either too obvious or too vague to be of practical value. Thus in the 1698 edition of the 'Bay Psalm-Book' (the work, first published in 1640, ran through seventy editions) there is this general direction: 'First, observe how many note-compass the tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that, so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compass of your and the people's voices, without Squeaking above or Grumbling below.' As we have seen (in Chapter II), the first books of psalmody pretending to be works of instruction were those of the Rev. John Tufts, of Newbury, Mass., published in 1712 and 1714, and that of the Rev. Thomas Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published in 1721. Largely as a result of Tufts' and Walter's publications, singing schools to teach the reading of psalm-tunes by sight began to be established in New England, although not without strenuous opposition. In 1723 the Rev. Thomas Symmes, of Bradford, Mass., published a 'joco-serious dialogue concerning regular singing,' which bore the title '_Utile Dulci_.' In this he presents and answers prevalent objections to singing by note, among which the following are significant of the ignorance, intolerance and pruriency of the 'unco guid' of that day: '5. That it is _Quakerish_ and _Popish_, and introductive of _instrumental_ musick. '6. That the names given to the notes are _bawdy_, yea _blasphemous_.'