The Germans were at one time the drunkenest of nations;
they are now amongst the soberest. "As drunken as a German boor," was a
common proverb. How have they been weaned from drink? Principally by
Education and Music.
Music has a most humanizing effect. The cultivation of the art has a
most favourable influence upon public morals. It furnishes a source of
pleasure in every family. It gives home a new attraction. It makes
social intercourse more cheerful. Father Mathew followed up his
Temperance movement by a Singing movement. He promoted the establishment
of musical clubs all over Ireland: for he felt that, as he had taken the
people's whisky from them, he must give them some wholesome stimulus in
its stead. He gave them Music. Singing classes were established, to
refine the taste, soften the manners, and humanize the mass of the Irish
people. But we fear that the example set by Father Mathew has already
been forgotten.
"What a fulness of enjoyment," says Channing, "has our Creator placed
within our reach, by surrounding us with an atmosphere which may be
shaped into sweet sounds! And yet this goodness is almost lost upon us,
through want of culture of the organ by which this provision is to be
enjoyed."
How much would the general cultivation of the gift of music improve us
as a people! Children ought to learn it in schools, as they do in
Germany.
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