Eighteen hundred and ninety-seven is the centennial year of Franz Schubert, the great composer, who was born in Vienna on the 31st of January, 1797. He was of humble lineage. His father, who also bore the name of Franz, was the son of a peasant, who studied in Vienna, and became assistant to his brother, a schoolmaster. He married Elizabeth Vitz, who had been in service as a cook in Vienna. Franz Peter Schubert was the thirteenth of a family of fourteen children, nine of whom died in infancy. His love of music was apparent when he was very young. A relative often took him to visit a pianoforte warehouse, and there, and on an old worn-out piano at home, the child studied his first exercises without a master. At the age of seven he had a teacher, Michael Holzer, who used to cry out, "When I wish to teach him anything, he always knows it already." When he was eleven years old he was employed as a solo singer and violin player in a church. A little later his father succeeded in getting him a position in the Emperor's Chapel, and he thus became a pupil in a music school, which was called the "Convict." It seems that the boys at the Convict endured many privations. The practice-room was unbearably cold in winter, and the young students were allowed to go without food for eight hours and a half, between a "poor dinner and a wretched supper." When he was about fifteen, Franz wrote to his brother, explaining his position, his hungry longing for a roll or an apple, and concluded in these words: "I rely on the teaching of the Apostle Matthew, who says, 'Let him that hath two coats give one to the poor.' Meanwhile I trust you will listen to the voice which unceasingly appeals to you to remember your loving, hoping, poverty-stricken--and once again I repeat poverty-stricken--brother Franz." His earliest composition for the piano is dated April, 1810. It was his habit to date all his pieces. In March, 1811, he composed a long vocal piece, "Hagar's Lament over Her Dying Son." His boy friends at the Convict were devoted to him, and were eager to play, sing, or copy any of his compositions. One of them, Josef Spaun, who was several years older than Schubert, and better off, helped him to procure all the music paper he needed. His first mass, in F, was composed and performed in 1814. It is said to be the most remarkable first mass ever produced, excepting Beethoven's in C. In 1815, when he was only eighteen years old, he composed the music for more than a hundred songs. The fine song, the "Erl King," was written in this year, and many of his boyish songs are among his finest productions. When he died in 1828, he left more than 1,100 compositions, the greater number of which had not then been published.