I Since we have drawn the distinction between adapted and indigenous folk-song, the question naturally arises whether there exists in America a truly indigenous folk-song at all. It has been agreed that America, having been colonized by Europeans, possesses no native culture whatever, except such as the Indians may have had. The Indian, indeed, has the best claim to the name American, being indigenous, or at least so early a colonizer as to have constituted virtually a native race. But being the one element which has not been fused with the many elements of which the American nation is now composed, he is to-day in the anomalous position of an indigenous foreigner. For the American of to-day is predominantly European--of overseas origin--and the European conquerors have, in this case, not adopted the 'culture' of the vanquished, because that culture was inferior to their own. The North American Indian has shown unquestioned evidences of art instincts--in his folk-lore, his handicrafts, and perhaps also in his music. But, with respect to the last, his impulses are so circumscribed by religious formulas and so little affected by a sense of proportion that they hardly achieve even the mildest form of artistic expression or design. Moreover, the idiom he employs is so foreign to us, so exotic in its nature, that either an unconscious or an impulsive use of it by American composers would be out of the question. What use has been made of Indian material has been with the conscious purpose of lending a savage character or local color to the music, as in the preëminent case of MacDowell's 'Indian Suite.' This is exactly analogous to the use of Oriental color by such composers as Saint-Saëns or Delibes. 'Arrangements,' or harmonizations, attempted upon the basis of our European scale have led to some pleasing results at the hands of Frederick R. Burton, Arthur Farwell and others, but at a total sacrifice of the original character of the tunes. What appeal such arrangements have to our ears depends entirely upon the harmonic texture or a readjustment of the melody according to European ideas, not upon its intrinsic value.