Catholic Central High School - Banner Yearbook (Fort Madison, IA)

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MUSIC p Music is the exponent of tl1e Beautiful, and beauty is the food of the finest and highest aspiration of the soul. The purest and sweetest of music is the gift of nature. It is these wild untaught melodies that arouse oul' fancy, stir our inner consciousness and set vibrating one of the thousand harp-strings of our being. The power of the tempest, the aspiring pride of lofty mountains, the dreary languor of summer clouds,---all these and a thousand other sights and sounds speak to us with familiar voice of feelings, experiences which are or have been ours, recalling the highest and most intense moments in the past when for a brief span of time we saw beyond the dust-cloud of the commonplace. There is nothing so interesting as such an uplifting of the soul,-the essence of life, and the interest is universal, permanent and inherent. Music is the interpreter of life. Its message is a high and precious word of authority about this mystery. Music more than any other thing in the range of our human knowledge opens the heart of man. It is the best interpreter of the heart in the heart's own vernacular. We know but poorly what we'are or what we might beg we have a very imperfect conception of our possibilities and aptitudes. It is the office of music to reveal these things to us and to awaken noble emotions, to stimulate us to noble efforts. We stand by the side of the masters and try to look into life as they saw it, we become familiar with their range and beauty of vision, we listen to their charming tone conceptions and through them we learn the best ideas of life, those noble love-inspiring, thoughts of things which constitute the deepest and grandest reality of human life. The most evasive, most subtle, most undefinable of arts teaches us, and raises us from the low drone of labor and toil, from the everlasting creaking of the wheels of commerce to the appreciation of a wealth of sound that cannot be surpassed. Music is the great influence, the grand influence and we cannot place too high an estimate on its powers for good. For the purpose of inculcating a sincere love of the beautiful no other study can surpass that of music. There is as much of inspiration and genius in a tone poem of Beethoven, VVagner, Lizst or Schubert as in the finest words of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Milton or Scott and it is time that the cultured person know the great masterpieces of musicians as well as of great poets. We study mathematics, science, ancient languages-then proceed to forget much of what has been taught us. Music is the heritage of life, it accompanies us from the cradle to the grave. We cannot escape if we would. The wider a person's ac- quaintance with good musical literature, the greater the mead of deep enjoyment that will be derived from life. . -HELEN CAPWELL, '28. SIXTY-ONE

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MUSIC

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G WY, Y m--.--,..1f1- 0 to Practice