I believe that the greatest creative artists have ever been national in the deepest sense of the word. They have been the mouthpieces of a people, and, while in their works they unrolled new and hitherto unknown visions of beauty, their masterpieces have always been an expression and extension of the race consciousness rather than a contradiction and denial of it.' If we accept this dictum, it will be quite rational, in treating the music of any nation, to begin at the bottom--by defining the sources and general character of its folk-song. We should have no difficulty in doing this in the case of France, Germany, or, say, Spain, which are more or less racially simple, but not so when we take a country like Austria, for instance, which is the home of at least three different racial stocks. Each of these has a well-developed music of its own, which has a well-defined racial complexion quite distinct from that of the others. Now America is precisely in this position, but in a very much higher degree. We have not three, but thirty or more different racial stocks, and of these perhaps six or seven are of sufficient strength and sufficient permanence to have become definitely associated with the American soil. Only in a limited sense, however, are these race settlements 'localized,' as they are in Austria, and therefore capable of retaining in any degree their characteristics and traditions. America's position is, in fact, unique in that it fuses all these apparently antagonistic elements, thus obliterating in a large measure their own racial peculiarities and, by the addition of a new, a neutralizing element, substituting a new product. That product is still in the making, and the neutralizing element is so intangible as to defy definite description. Indefinitely it is the spirit born of the sense of liberty of action, opportunity and optimistic endeavor which colors the character of every settler or immigrant, irrespective of his extraction. In contemplating the chaotic state of our 'national' music and in realizing that its ultimate character is in its formative stage, we are too apt to forget that it too has its folk-song antecedents, however heterogeneous they may be. We are not here concerned with the ultimate product, but with its ingredients. If these are partly English, Irish, Scotch, German, French, and Spanish, they are nevertheless legitimate, though these foreign ingredients may be dismissed with a mere mention in so far as they have suffered no peculiar transformation upon American soil; those that _have_ suffered transformation, like those that are indigenous, must receive attention because they have become legitimate material for our composers to draw upon in order to identify their art with their country. In spite of the peculiar position of America with regard to artistic individuality, then, we may be justified in treating the story of American creative musical art in the usual manner--beginning with folk-song.