The whole history of early musical culture in America--obscure enough at best--is additionally obfuscated by the persistent illusion of American historians that the New England psalm-tunes formed the absolute basis of our musical development. This illusion may be part of the widespread impression that the church has been the exclusive _fons et origo_ of musical art. Thus Ritter: 'Musical culture in America, as in the great musical countries of Europe--Italy, France, Germany--took its starting point from the church.'[10] As a consequence of this view of things we find the early chapters of all existing histories of American music strewn with 'psalm-tunes,' 'church choirs,' and 'clergymen,' as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. All of which would be perfectly desirable if the importance of these factors in our musical development were apparent. Neither in our popular music nor in works of our serious composers can we trace the influence of New England psalmody, though we can trace the influence of German folk-songs and Scotch reels and Irish jigs and negro tunes and the writings of every European composer, from Bach to Brahms. We have no desire to belittle the achievements of New England or the magnitude of its part in the history of the country. But--owing perhaps to the fact that literary production in America was for many generations confined almost exclusively to the New England states--we have had imposed on us a habit of thought which is a sort of historical synecdoche--New England being the figurative whole. Of course, it does not make a particle of difference to American music what we may think or say about its parentage. But, as long as history is to be written, it is well that it shall be written with some attempt at a disinterested attitude, and assumptions that the genesis of our music lay in New England or in any other circumscribed locality are entirely _ex parte_. Most of our composers have been disciples of some recognized European school or eclectic students of several schools. We can point in them to the influence of Bach or Mozart, of Beethoven or Brahms, of Schubert, Mendelssohn or Grieg, of Wagner, Strauss or Debussy, just as we can point to such influences in the writings of every European composer, great or small. The musical inheritance of the American composer is not American; it is universal. For a variety of reasons we have not yet developed a distinctively national school, but, among our younger composers who are unmistakeably American, where are the traces of Puritan psalmody? The _ethical_ influence of Puritanism is still strong in the land; it still colors our literature, art and public life; it even colors our music. But purely æsthetic influence is quite a different thing. Frankly, we believe that the music of colonial New England has had no more influence on our music of to-day than the writings of Cotton Mather have had on the work of O. Henry.