Symmetrical Psalmody, Or, Portions of the Psalms and Other Scriptures (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1855 Excerpt: ... PREFACE. At a time when the absence of religious principle, and the prevalence of vice and crime, among large masses of the people is felt to be a subject of anxious public concern, it may perhaps be of use to turn our thoughts towards the experience of past ages, and pay some attention to a remarkable statement placed on record by an ancient historian of great authority, who has informed us that his countrymen, the citizens of Arcadia, owed their superior character for piety and humanity to peculiar Institutions, which trained the youth of that state to the practice of Music, from childhood to thirty years of age. The Music which formed so important an element of national education among this virtuous people was not an art addressing itself to the sense only of sound, and its acei " The first Arcadians, though their lives and manners in all other points were rigid and austere, incorporated this art of music into the very essence of their government, and obliged not their children only, but the young men likewise, till they had attained the age of 30 years, to persist in the constant study and practice of it. For all men know that Arcadia is almost the only country in which the children, even from the most tender age, are taught to sing in measure the songs and hymns that are composed in honor of their Gods and Heroes." Polybins, Hist. Lib. IV. dental associations, but one in which the power of sounds was employed to give the highest expression to sentiments, intellectual and moral; it was the art of Musical Poetry; which flourished in perfection, when every Poet was a Musician, and every Musician a Poet. In process of time, however, when Musicians, by the improvement of harmony, the invention of instruments, and the cultivation of the voice, had multipli...