The Civic Music Association of Chicago, first suggested by Mrs. George B. Carpenter, was recently launched according to plans made by the Woman’s Club of Chicago. “Music within the reach of all” is its slogan. Mrs. Carpenter is president and she has the coöperation of the Chamber of Commerce and prominent women like Ella Flagg Young. Dora Allen, of the Association, states the aims in an article in _The Survey_: It is hoped that local committees may be organized at recreation centers to coöperate, that neighborhood choral and orchestral clubs may be formed, that opportunity may be given for lecture recitals, initial appearances of young artists, production of works of resident composers and all distinctly American music, and that annual musical festivals may be held, to bring together the local groups. It is further planned to extend the work from the playgrounds to the halls in public school buildings, twenty-five of which are now open as social centers. We cannot think but with a great deal of concern and with some humiliation of the effect which America has on some of the best capacities of the foreigners who come to us. They come singing folk-songs, national songs, and snatches from their operas. We drown these beautiful melodies with the tawdry rags and popular songs of the saloon, the dance hall and cheap theater. That is a dark picture. A bright one was vividly painted to the writer by Mrs. Edward McDowell, who is devoting herself to the interests which aroused her great husband’s greatest enthusiasm: the development and democratization of music in America. The remarkable success of the Peterboro pageant is well-known throughout the country, and yet as Mrs. McDowell pointed out, the people who worked so hard and who so artistically rendered the music and dances and dramatic action were the townsfolk and laborers of a small New England village. With the achievement of this pageant in mind, Mrs. McDowell after a visit to the Chicago playgrounds in the immigrant districts was enthusiastic over what might be done with the coöperation of the Bohemians, Germans, Scandinavians, Italians and Poles and other art-loving nationalities. In almost all towns and cities there are free public libraries. In a growing number there are institutes in which painting and sculpture are exhibited without charge; and do we not see, here and there, the beginnings of a movement to present good music, either without charge or at a cost so small as to place it within the reach of all?