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Introduction to
Music Education
Fourth Edition
Hoffer 4E.book Page ii Wednesday, March 22, 2017 10:59 AM
Hoffer 4E.book Page iii Wednesday, March 22, 2017 10:59 AM

Introduction to
Music Education
Fourth Edition

CHARLES HOFFER
University of Florida

WAVELAND

PRESS, INC.
Long Grove, Illinois
Hoffer 4E.book Page iv Wednesday, March 22, 2017 10:59 AM

For information about this book, contact:


Waveland Press, Inc.
4180 IL Route 83, Suite 101
Long Grove, IL 60047-9580
(847) 634-0081
info@waveland.com
www.waveland.com

Copyright © 2017 by Waveland Press, Inc.

10-digit ISBN 1-4786-3407-3


13-digit ISBN 978-1-4786-3407-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a


retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without per-
mission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To

Andrew Allan Hoffer


Kendall Renee Hoffer
Emily Claire Hoffer
Lauren Ruth Hoffer
Lucas Latham Teater
Kevin Robert Teater

May the joy of music fill their lives


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Hoffer 4E.book Page vii Wednesday, March 22, 2017 10:59 AM

Contents

Preface xiii

1 The Importance of Teaching Music 1


The Experience of Teaching 3
The Need for Instruction 5
The Nature of Aesthetic Experiences 6
Nonmusical Reasons for Music 9
Students or the Subject? 12
QUESTIONS 12 PROJECTS 13 REFERENCES 14

2 The Nature of Teaching Music 15


What Is Music? 15
What Is Teaching? 16
Analyzing Music Teaching 17
Why Teach Music? 18
What Should Be Taught in Music? 18
How Should Music Be Taught? 19
To Whom Is Music Being Taught? 20
With What Results? 20
Observing Music Teaching 22
QUESTIONS 25

vii
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viii Contents

3 Planning and Assessing Music Teaching 27


Amount of Planning by Music Teachers 27
Aids in Planning 28
Long-Range Planning 28
Unit Planning 29
Lesson Planning 30
Planning for Rehearsals 31
Assessing Learning in Music 32
QUESTIONS 34 PROJECT 34

4 Qualities and Competencies of Music Teachers 35


Personality 35
The Importance of Being Yourself 37
Human Qualities and
Professional Competence 38
Personal Efficiency 40
Relations with Professional Colleagues 40
Teacher and/or Performer? 41
QUESTIONS 42 REFERENCES 42

5 Preparing to Be a Music Teacher 43


Specific or General Preparation? 43
Applying Musical Knowledge and Skills 44
Learning in Music Education Courses 45
Knowledge of Teaching Techniques 47
Pre-Professional Experiences 48
Continued Growth and Self-Evaluation 51
Self-Improvement 52
Teacher Rating Forms 52
Playback of Classes 53
QUESTIONS 54 PROJECT 54

6 The Music Education Profession 55


What Is a Profession? 55
The National Association
for Music Education 56
Being a Member of a Profession 57
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Contents ix

Educating Others about Music Education 59


Professional Musicians 60
Music Merchants 60
Private Music Teachers 61
Community Organizations 62
Parents 62
Teachers and Educational Goals 63
QUESTIONS 64 PROJECT 64

7 Development of the Profession 67


Before 1800 68
The Nineteenth Century 68
The Twentieth Century 70
After World War I 71
After World War II 72
The 1960s 72
The 1970s 75
The 1980s 76
The 1990s 77
The Twenty-First Century 78
The 2014 Standards 79
Conclusion 79
QUESTIONS 80 REFERENCES 80

8 Content of Music Classes and Rehearsals 83


Learning in Music 84
Musical Syntax 84
Musical Works 85
Intellectual Understandings 85
Skills and Activities 88
Attitudes 90
Guidelines for the Content
of Music Classes and Rehearsals 91
National, State, and Local Guidelines 93
Technological Advances 94
QUESTIONS 95 PROJECTS 95 REFERENCES 96
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x Contents

9 The Elementary School Music Program 97


Goals of the Elementary School
Music Program 97
Importance of the Elementary Program 99
Types of Situations 100
Amount of Time 101
Personnel Responsible for Music Instruction 101
Music and Classroom Teachers 102
Combination Arrangements for Instruction 104
Content of Classroom Instruction 104
QUESTIONS 106 REFERENCES 106

10 The Secondary School Music Program 107


General Music 108
Elective Courses 109
Reasons for Dominance of
Performing Groups 109
Types of Performing Groups 111
Small Ensembles 112
Orchestras 112
Marching Bands 113
Jazz Bands and Swing Choirs 114
QUESTIONS 116 REFERENCES 116

11 International Curriculum Developments 117


Dalcroze Approach:
Development and Background 117
Characteristics of the Dalcroze Approach 118
Orff Schulwerk 120
Characteristics of Schulwerk 121
Kodály Approach:
Development and Background 124
Characteristics of the Kodály Program 125
Suzuki Talent Education:
Development and Background 128
Characteristics of Suzuki Talent Education 129
Foreign Methods in American Schools 131
QUESTIONS 133 PROJECT 133 REFERENCES 133
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Contents xi

12 Challenges in Music Education 135


Music in Early Childhood 135
Music in Middle Schools 137
Assessment of Music Teaching 138
Education versus Entertainment 139
Fund-Raising 141
Cultural Diversity 143
Students at Risk 144
Closing Thoughts 146
QUESTIONS 147 PROJECT 147 REFERENCES 148

13 Music Education and Mr. Holland’s Opus 149


Three Useful Questions 149
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 150

Appendix A: The Music Code of Ethics 151


Appendix B: Music with a Sacred Text 155
Appendix C: Fund-Raising 157
Index 161
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Preface

S o you are thinking about becoming a music teacher. Great choice!


It’s a job that is interesting, challenging, and meaningful. It is also a
role that requires much understanding, both of the subject of music
and how it can benefit people, especially school students.
Topics covered in this book explore the teaching/learning process,
personal qualities of successful music teachers, and planning music
instruction. Typical college programs for preparing music teachers
are examined along with the music education profession.
An analysis of elementary and secondary school music programs
is included, as well as challenges and opportunities that school music
teachers face today. Future music educators are asked to think about
their long-range career goals.
The fourth edition is not a methods textbook. Such courses are the
logical next step in most teacher education programs and are usually
taken in the junior and senior years.
I would like to thank the many colleagues who have over the years
provided me with ideas and guidance in my teaching and writing about
music education. Citing a few names would not be fair to the many
who are not mentioned. I can only recognize them here as a group.
Special thanks are due my wife, Mimi, for her many valuable sug-
gestions and contributions to this edition.

xiii
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1
The Importance of
Teaching Music

It all begins here. It has to. Unless music is valuable for people, espe-
cially young people, then the whole idea of music education is in deep
trouble. If music makes little or no difference in the lives of people,
there is little point in spending time and effort educating them in it.
For this reason, music education begins with a clear understanding of
why it is important to people and the quality of their lives.
For present and future music teachers there is an additional rea-
son why music education begins with the importance of teaching and
learning music. Those reasons have a lot to do with what and how
music should be taught. For example, if music is seen as a nice extra-
curricular activity with little educational content, then music teachers
don’t need to be concerned about what students learn. On the other
hand, if music is seen as something that’s a vital part of a young per-
son’s education, then music teachers will take actions to ensure every
student acquires basic music skills and knowledge. The reasons for
music in schools not only provide a starting place, they also point to
the direction for music education.
The photograph on the next page makes the point very effectively:
life without music would be pretty bleak and dreary. People would not
physically die if they didn’t have music, but some of the quality of their
lives would be missing. Psychologically they would be worse off, and
their spirits would be diminished and dampened. Music contributes to
the quality of people’s lives.
The message on the photograph, “Imagine the world without
music,” also applies to societies and civilizations. Without music, the

1
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IMAGINE
THE WORLD
WITHOUT
MUSIC
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The Importance of Teaching Music 3

quality of life in America would be less than it is. It would lack some of
its vitality and vigor. The nation would be poorer, not only economi-
cally, but also in how its citizens act and feel.
Music and the other arts represent an important difference
between existing and living. Animals exist in the sense that they man-
age to survive. Humans live; they attempt to make life interesting and
satisfying. Humans are not content just to get by, to survive. Music, the
visual arts, and dance enrich life and bring to it special meanings by
providing an avenue for expression. People admire the shifting surf,
the colors of a sunset, and the beauty of a flower. They also create
objects they can contemplate and with which they can enrich their
lives. Although a large cardboard box could serve as a nightstand by a
bed, most would rather have a wooden table or piece of furniture with
some grace and beauty. The compulsion of humans to reach beyond
their immediate and practical needs is not just a luxury; it is an essen-
tial quality of being human.
People sense the value of music, even if they seldom talk about it.
One could assemble a large number of impressive statistics about the
time and money people spend on music, the number of persons who
attend concerts and buy recordings in one form or another, the num-
ber who play a musical instrument or sing in choirs, and so on. Music
has been present in every society since the dawn of civilization. It is
found in every part of the globe, from the remote areas of Africa and
Australia to the streets of Chicago and Beijing.
The importance of music to people is demonstrated in so many
ways that it’s easy to overlook them. Just about every film and televi-
sion show has a sound track, which almost always contains theme
music. Music is included in public events such as pregame activities,
celebrations of ship launchings, and the swearing-in ceremonies of
public officials. People are exposed to music in supermarkets, air-
ports, and their cars. People can hardly avoid music when they are
away from their residence.
A fundamental point is clear: music is important to people. The
point may be obvious, but it is essential. If music were not important
to people, then the teaching and learning of it would be irrelevant.

THE EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING


For music teachers, the rationales and supporting data for music
in the schools are reassuring, but logic and facts are not the primary
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4 Chapter 1

reason for their choice of vocation. For them, teaching is a personal


experience. It’s a job that becomes meaningful and satisfying because
of their experiences with young people.
They remember students like the boy who, in spite of his small
size, was determined to play trombone. Although it was tough going
for him at first, he learned to play it well, and he continued to do so
throughout high school. They remember students like the nice boy
who suffered from a palsied condition that left him with slurred
speech and a tendency to become faint during performances of the
high school choir. (Two husky boys were placed on each side of him to
ease him down so he could sit on the risers if he began to feel weak.)
They remember how they were saddened a few years later when they
heard that he drowned while swimming. They wondered, “Did I do all
I could have done for him when he was in choir?”
They remember others, too, including the eager fifth grade trum-
pet student who couldn’t wait to try the valve oil the store placed in
her case. She didn’t wait for instructions before she began to dribble
the oil on the outside of the valves and then on to her lap. They also
remember the hundreds of youngsters who were introduced to the
music of Handel, Bartók, and Sousa and found in those works a world
of music they hardly knew existed before. These and countless other
experiences convince music teachers of the value of their work. They
know music is well worth studying; no one need tell them. Although,
of course, they enjoy hearing appreciative comments from parents,
school administrators, or other teachers.
They also are aware of what their students would miss if there
were no music instruction in the schools. They know the students
would be severely limited in their knowledge about music and their
ability to be involved with it. The few students who possess unusual
ability or come from families able and willing to pay for private
instruction in music will be fine. However, most students would:
• have no experience in a vocal or instrumental ensemble;
• be unable to use music notation;
• have very limited skill in listening to music;
• know only a very small number of songs of only one or two
types;
• seldom have a chance to try creating music;
• know little about important aspects of Western music and the
different types of music around the world; and
• have much less favorable attitudes toward music.
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The Importance of Teaching Music 5

In short, they would be deprived—cheated may be a better word for


it—of knowing about music beyond a marginal level.
Because of their experiences in teaching and knowledge of what a
good music program should be, most music teachers take their work
seriously. As with any profession, there are a few members who fall
short, but the great majority of music teachers in schools are able men
and women who care about having their students learn. That’s the
way it should be, of course, but it can cause feelings of frustration and
disappointment when school administrators or parents appear to
regard music in a lackadaisical way. The conscientious music teacher
may wonder: “Why don’t they understand what the students are get-
ting from their music classes?”
Music teaching is a personal matter for yet another reason. Often
a music teacher is the only one in that area in the school, or at least
the only one in a particular music specialty in the school. It’s a rare
high school that has two choral directors, for example. Professionally
speaking, most music teachers feel isolated. They seldom have a
chance to discuss their work with other music teachers. This fact
increases the importance of NAfME (the National Association for
Music Education) and its state-affiliated units.
It also means music teachers must be more self-directed and
responsible than teachers of other subjects. They must be the develop-
ers, facilitators, and evaluators of their work. They must also be the
communicators about their work to school administrators and parents
to a degree not true of English or science teachers. For these reasons,
teaching music is challenging, interesting, and very worthwhile.

THE NEED FOR INSTRUCTION


The fact that music is important does not automatically ensure
music’s place in the school curriculum. It is possible to understand
the value of music in people’s lives yet fail to think music should be
taught in schools. For example, a person might think music can be
learned casually in life, like learning to ride a bicycle. Such a view
would be true if an education in music consisted only of learning to
sing a few simple songs by rote. However, just as an education in
mathematics consists of much more than learning how to add and
subtract, and an education in science means more than observing the
patterns in the weather, an education in music involves much more
than a little singing or superficial listening. Young people need to be
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6 Chapter 1

taught reading, science, math, and history, and they also need to be
taught music.
The second major point is this: The learning of any subject, includ-
ing music, beyond a rudimentary level requires organized, systematic
instruction, usually from a trained professional. There is simply too
much to be learned in today’s world for areas of knowledge to be left
to the random circumstances of family or social conditions. The
schools may not always do things as well as they should, but they ful-
fill a function in society that most families cannot. A system of educa-
tion is necessary in today’s complex societies. And for most students, if
they are going to be educated in music, it will happen in the schools—
or it won’t happen at all.
Fortunately, most people not only value music, but they also sense
the value of young people learning music. Even if they can’t express
the reason why they think this is so, they feel it intuitively. When they
hear a group of young people making music, even if it’s not performed
particularly well by trained musicians’ standards, they know in their
hearts it is a good thing. Perhaps it is because of the feelings encour-
aged in them when they hear a group of young people doing some-
thing constructive, or perhaps they sense that music contributes to the
quality of life in the community and its young people. Whatever their
reasons, most adults want young people to have a well-rounded edu-
cation that includes music.
Again, it is possible to assemble impressive statistics about the
number of schools offering music programs, the amount of money
raised by support groups for music activities, positive responses to
opinion polls, and so on. The problem with support for music is not
the availability of at least some music instruction in schools but rather
the establishment of programs of sufficient scope and quality. High-
quality school music programs often cost more than some other areas
of the curriculum, and there is a lot of competition for the limited
funds available to education. In addition, music educators have usu-
ally not been diligent in educating school officials and the public about
what a good school music program should be like. This important
matter is discussed later in this book.

THE NATURE OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCES


The word “music” covers a lot of territory. It runs from the tunes
people whistle while washing a car, to pieces teenagers use to identify
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The Importance of Teaching Music 7

themselves with a particular group, to music created to inspire patri-


otic or religious feelings, to complex musical works that affect our psy-
chological beings. There are many kinds of music for many different
purposes, just as there are many different types of clothes, most of
which are appropriate for only certain uses and occasions, like tuxe-
dos and sweat suits.
Music, especially music for the concert or recital hall, can add a
dimension to life that is available only through the arts. Whether one
calls it “subjective reality,” “aesthetic world,” “world of feeling,” “artis-
tic,” “poetic,” or something else, it has to do with thinking and experi-
ences that are richer and often have more effect on people than
rational, cognitive thinking. Sometimes these aesthetic experiences
are truer in terms of expressing how people feel. In any case, they are
a valuable aspect of human life.
The following lines from the Old Testament (Isaiah 55:12) describe
how the ancient Israelites will feel when they are freed from Babylon.
For you shall go out in joy,
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands.

Taken literally, the lines don’t make much sense. Everyone knows trees
have no hands and mountains can’t sing. But in getting across the
message of how the Israelites will feel, the lines are far more expres-
sive than merely saying, “You are going to feel mighty good when you
are freed.” Of course, everyday communication would be nearly
impossible if only artistic, poetic discourse were used. But a life filled
with only objective, rational thought would be drab and tedious.
Aesthetic experiences differ from ordinary experiences in a num-
ber of ways. One basic difference between aesthetic and ordinary
experiences is the nonpractical nature of aesthetic experiences. They
are valued for the insight, satisfaction, and enjoyment they provide,
not for any practical benefits. Looking at a bowl of fruit (a scene fre-
quently painted by artists) is aesthetic when you contemplate the color
and shape of the pieces of fruit. It is not aesthetic when you are think-
ing about how the fruit reminds you that you are hungry. An aesthetic
experience is an end in itself; it is done only for the value of doing it.
A second characteristic of an aesthetic experience is that it involves
both intellect and emotion. When you look at a painting aesthetically,
you are consciously aware of considering thoughtfully its shapes, lines,
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8 Chapter 1

and colors. That’s the intellectual part. At the same time you are react-
ing to what you see; you have feelings about the painting, even if it’s
abstract. Seldom are these reactions so strong that you start laughing
or crying, but you react to some degree. Your feelings are involved.
Because intellectual contemplation is required, recreational activ-
ities like playing tennis, or purely physical sensations such as standing
under a cold shower, are not considered aesthetic. Neither are purely
intellectual efforts such as working multiplication problems, although
even in such a case, a reaction is often involved, as when you see an
error like 3 × 8 = 25.
A third characteristic of aesthetic experiences is that they are
experiences. You cannot tell someone about a painting or a musical
work and expect that person to derive the same amount of enjoyment
from the work that you did. In fact, telling about a piece of music or a
drama tends to ruin it. For this reason, aesthetic experiences have no
answers, as do problems in a math class. Listening to the last minute
of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is not the “answer” to that symphony.
Anyone who tries doing so is cheating themselves out of the aesthetic
enjoyment that the symphony can provide.
A fourth characteristic of aesthetic experiences is focusing atten-
tion intently on the object being contemplated. This centering of atten-
tion is on the object itself as an object, not on a task to be
accomplished such as making a good serve when playing tennis.
Where does the idea of beauty enter the discussion of aesthetic
experiences? In one sense, it doesn’t very much. Not all aesthetic experi-
ences need to be beautiful in the usual sense of that word. Hundreds of
works of art, from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring to the Ashcan school
of painting of Edward Hopper and George Bellows, have demonstrated
that the aesthetic and the beautiful are two different considerations.
Pointing out what an aesthetic experience is not helps to clarify its
nature. The opposite of aesthetic is not ugly or unpleasant, but rather
it might be thought of as “anesthetic”—no feeling, no life, nothing. An
example of anesthetic behavior that comes to mind happened one day
while I was observing a mediocre middle school band rehearsal. A
sousaphone player was chatting with one of the drummers when the
band director started the rehearsal without waiting for the players
who were not paying attention. After a few moments, the sousaphone
player realized he should be playing along with the others. Although
he didn’t know where they were in the music or what to play, he pulled
the mouthpiece to his mouth and started blatting away—with no sense
of what was happening musically.
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The Importance of Teaching Music 9

NONMUSICAL REASONS FOR MUSIC


Music has a long tradition of being included in schools for reasons
such as citizenship, character development, team spirit, and health
benefits. Plato, in his Republic, cites the need for music in the educa-
tion of every citizen. His reasons were based on the ancient Greek idea
of ethos—the belief that each mode promoted certain qualities of char-
acter in a person. Because music was closely allied with mathematics
during the Middle Ages, music was one of the main subjects in medi-
eval universities, and scholars were fascinated with the acoustical
ratios of musical sounds. They wondered if the ratios might reveal
secrets about the universe. In 1837, when Lowell Mason was given
permission to begin teaching music in the Boston schools, the subject
was justified because it contributed to reading and speech and pro-
vided “a recreation, yet not a dissipation of the mind—a respite, yet
not a relaxation—its office would thus be to restore the jaded energies,
and send back the scholars with invigorated powers to other more
laborious duties” (Birge, 1966, p. 43).
The belief that music has the power to help people in ways other
than aesthetically did not end with Lowell Mason. In fact, until after
the middle of the twentieth century, nonmusical reasons were almost
the only ones offered for music in the schools. For example, in 1941,
Peter Dykema and Karl Gehrkens, two major figures in the develop-
ment of American music education, wrote that “the teacher teaches
the children through the medium of music” (pp. 380–381). The impli-
cation of their view is that music should be in the schools to help
achieve goals beyond itself. In 1991, the report of the National Com-
mission on Music Education devoted a number of pages to the notion
that studying music contributes to success in school and in life
(National Association for Music Education, 1991). In the middle and
late 1990s, many people were justifying music based on the “Mozart
effect,” in which listening to Mozart’s music appeared to temporarily
help students in terms of spatial reasoning.
Why has music been so persistently justified on nonmusical
grounds? Is it because those beliefs are true? Is it because music educa-
tors need practical reasons to establish a case for music in the schools?
Or do they think nonmusical reasons are more easily understood by
people who are not musicians than a “quality of life” explanation? The
answer is, “All of the above.” But the matter is not a simple one.
Music can contribute much to other areas of the curriculum, and
this should happen more often than it currently does in the schools.
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10 Chapter 1

However, usually the use of nonmusical values to justify music is more


concerned with effects on individual students and with something
more than music’s psychological value and the enrichment it can offer
other school subjects.
Claims that something automatically transfers from music to other
areas of curriculum or life are often exaggerated. To begin with, the
variations in types of instruction in music make a great deal of differ-
ence. Musical sounds in and of themselves do not increase intelli-
gence, help people to negotiate disagreements, or aid in preventing
illnesses. Karen Wolff (1978) carefully analyzed the available research
on the transfer of learning in music to other subjects. She found spe-
cific transfer only in language arts and some inadequate studies that
indicate there may be some other positive benefits of music study.
Some benefits have also been observed in improved attitudes toward
school on the part of students as indicated by a decline in absenteeism
(Rodosky, 1974). Some of this benefit may happen because music
offers the students a refreshing change from what they usually do in
school. Music can be an effective “anti-monotony” activity.
There is some additional intriguing evidence about music and suc-
cess in school—and presumably then in life. Students who participate
in music generally score higher on Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT)
than students who are not in any arts courses. In 2001, the music stu-
dents in performing groups bettered the non-arts students by 57 points
(out of a possible 800 points) in the verbal measure and 41 in the quan-
titative measure (Princeton University, 2001). Another study found that
children given piano lessons significantly improved in their spatial
temporal IQ scores compared to children who received computer les-
sons, casual singing, or no lessons (Rauscher et al., 1997, pp. 1–8).
On the surface, these results would seem to prove once and for all
that music has direct mental benefits beyond its artistic ones. Maybe.
Music is good for people, but results such as higher SAT scores do not
prove that music causes music students to be smarter. It could be that
the smarter students gravitate toward music, which often is the case.
It is very difficult to separate cause (why something happened) from
correlation (two events related by time or place). For example, in one
high school, three of the five boys on the tennis team were National
Merit finalists. Did playing tennis make them more intelligent, or were
the more academic-type students attracted to tennis? Very likely it was
the latter reason.
Although it is nearly impossible to prove in a controlled study,
some students acquire what might be called a “cycle of success” in
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“Granddad can stay but a day,” said he, “and I will see that they
are driven back to you the next morning.”
The rancher was something of a sportsman himself, and he
finally consented to help the boy. The cattle were sent over. Old
Doctor Bright duly arrived and was driven out to the herd, which
Dickie said was only a sample of his stock that had been brought in
to be shown to his visitor. The boy added, however, that it was not
good to keep the cattle penned up, and that they must go back upon
the range right away. The old doctor was delighted, and before he
left he gave Dickie a check for ten thousand dollars to develop the
business.
Another young remittance man added to his income by
pretending to have a gopher farm. His father had never heard the
word “gopher” before, and supposed that the tiny ground squirrels
were some kind of valuable live stock. He was, therefore, quite
pleased when his boy wrote an enthusiastic letter saying that he had
now seven hundred blooded gophers on his range. When sonny
added that the animals were in good condition, but that it would take
a thousand dollars more to carry them through the winter for the
market next spring, father sent on the money.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OVER THE GREAT DIVIDE

Over the Great Divide and across the mighty ranges of the
Rockies!
Hundreds of miles between ice-clad peaks and over snow-
covered plains!
Up and down the ragged passes of towering mountains, their
heads capped with blue glaciers, and their faces rough with beards
of frosty pines!
For the last week I have been travelling across the western
highland of Canada. I have gone over the backbone of the continent,
which reaches north to Alaska and south to the Strait of Magellan.
Here in Canada the Rockies extend in three ranges from western
Alberta throughout the entire width of British Columbia. The
easternmost marks a part of the boundary line between the
provinces and the westernmost range rises steeply from the Pacific
Ocean. All between is high plateaus and broken mountain chains
spotted with glaciers.
This vast sea of mountains is said to be the equal of twenty-four
Switzerlands, and I can well believe it. It is only five hours by rail
across the Swiss Alps from Lucerne to Como, but the fastest
Canadian Pacific trains cannot make the trip from Cochrane, Alberta,
to Vancouver in less than twenty-three hours. Switzerland is noted
the world over for its glaciers, yet here in the Selkirk range alone
there are as many glaciers as in all the Alps thrown together.
I have visited the great mountain regions of the world. I have
stood on the hills of Darjiling and watched the sun rise on Mount
Everest. From the tops of the Andes, three miles above the level of
the sea, I have taken a hair-raising ride in a hand-car down to the
Pacific. I have looked into the sulphurous crater of old Popocatepetl,
and I have stood among the Alpine glaciers on the top of the
Jungfrau. But nowhere have I found Mother Nature more lavish in
scenes of rugged grandeur than right here in Canada not far from
our own northern boundary.
The mountains change at every turn of the wheels of our train.
Now they rise almost straight up on both sides of the track for
hundreds upon hundreds of feet. They shut out the sun and their
tops touch the sky. Now we shoot out into the open, and there is a
long vista of jagged hills rising one above the other until they fade
away into the peaks on the horizon. We ride for miles where there is
no sign of the works of man except the gleaming track, the snow
sheds here and there, and the little mountain stations, where the
shriek of our engine reverberates and echoes throughout the valley.
Each mile we cover seems to bring a new wonder. It may be a
majestic waterfall, a towering peak, an over-hanging cliff, a glacier
sparkling under the rays of the winter sun, or a vast panorama of
glittering snow and ice standing out in bold contrast against the dark
rocks and forests. It takes my breath away, and I think of the Texas
cowboy who had made his pile and had started out to see the world.
His life had been spent on the plains, and at his first visit to these
Canadian mountains their grandeur so filled his soul that, unable to
contain himself, he threw his hat into the air and yelled:
In a region of beautiful lakes, the “Lake of the
Hanging Glaciers” is one of the most picturesque in
the Canadian Rockies. Behind it lowers the snowy
crest of Mount Sir Donald, some two miles high.
Wainwright National Park has the largest herd of
buffalo in America. More than five thousand animals,
the descendants of a herd of seven hundred originally
purchased from a Montana rancher, range over a
fenced-in reserve of one hundred thousand acres.
“Hurrah for God!”
One gets his first view of the mountains at Calgary. As we
travelled through the foothills our train climbed steadily, and at Banff,
eighty miles to the west, we had reached a height of almost a mile
above sea level. The region about Banff has been set aside by the
government as Rocky Mountain Park. It is known as the Yosemite
Valley of the North, and has become the finest mountain resort of
Canada. Here the Canadian Pacific Railway has built a magnificent
hotel. It stands high above the confluence of the Bow and Spray
rivers and affords a splendid view of Mount Assiniboine.
In summer the attractions at Banff include hot sulphur baths,
open-air swimming pools, tennis courts, and golf links, and in winter
there are snow carnivals and ski-jumping contests. The surrounding
country offers mountain climbing of all kinds, from easy slopes for
the inexperienced tenderfoot to almost inaccessible peaks that
challenge the skill of the most expert climber. The region outside the
park limits contains some of the finest game lands on the continent,
and is a Mecca for the fisherman and the hunter.
In addition to the railway, Banff is reached by a ninety-mile motor
road from Calgary. In 1923 this road was extended southwesterly
across the Vermilion Pass to Lake Windermere in British Columbia.
The construction of that stretch completed the last link in the “circle
tour” motor route that now runs from Lake Windermere via Seattle to
southern California, thence through the Grand Canyon and
Yellowstone and Glacier National parks, and back to the Canadian
boundary.
Thirty miles west of Banff, and almost six thousand feet above
the level of the sea, is the gem-like Lake Louise in its setting of dark
forests and snow-clad mountains, and not far away is the famous
Valley of the Ten Peaks. A few miles farther on we reach the Great
Divide, which marks the boundary between Alberta and British
Columbia. Here we see the waters of a single stream divide, one
part going west to the Pacific and the other flowing to the east and
eventually losing itself in Hudson Bay.
Between Calgary and the Great Divide the railway track climbs
three eighths of a mile. It goes over the main range through the
Kicking Horse Pass, more than a mile above sea level, and then
drops down to the valley of the Columbia River. It rises again a
quarter of a mile where it crosses the Selkirks through the five-mile-
long Connaught tunnel, and then winds its way downward through
the coast ranges to the great western ocean.
The Kicking Horse Pass was so named from an incident that
occurred when the surveyors for the railway were searching for a
route over the mountains. At this point one of the men was kicked by
a pack horse and apparently killed. His companions had even dug a
grave for him, but just then the supposedly dead man showed signs
of life. He soon was fully recovered and the party proceeded onward.
Later, his curiosity led him to revisit the scene of his narrowly averted
burial, and in so doing he discovered this gap in the mountains.
The Kicking Horse was Canada’s first, and for years its only,
railway pass over the Rockies. The construction of the railway
through it was considered a great feat of civil engineering, but it has
been much improved. In 1909 two spiral tunnels were built for the
descent to the Kicking Horse River, twelve hundred feet below. Here
the track, sloping downward, makes two almost complete circles
inside the mountain, and the tunnels have so cut down the steep
grade that the number of engines required for a train has been
reduced from four to two.
Another line of the Canadian Pacific climbs over the mountains
through the Crow’s Nest Pass, not far north of the United States
boundary. A third gateway to the ocean is the Yellowhead Pass, west
of Edmonton, by which the Canadian National lines cross the
Rockies. Beyond that pass the tracks branch out, one section ending
at Prince Rupert and the other at Vancouver. The Yellowhead,
though the lowest of the three passes, is under the very shadow of
some of the loftiest of these mountains. Near it is Mount Robson, the
highest peak in Canada, which rises in a mighty cone almost two
miles above the surrounding range and more than thirteen thousand
feet above the sea.
The Yellowhead route passes through Jasper Park, the greatest
of Canada’s western game and forest reserves. That park is almost
four times the size of Rhode Island, and much larger than Rocky
Mountain Park, which we saw at Banff. It contains the beautiful Lac
Beauvert, on the shores of which a hotel and several lodges are
operated by the Canadian National Railways. Mount Robson Park
adjoins Jasper Park at the west, and farther south are Yoko,
Waterton Lakes, and other great national playgrounds.
One of the most interesting of Canada’s twelve Dominion parks
is that at Wainwright, Alberta. I saw something of it on my way from
Saskatoon to Edmonton. There a hundred thousand acres of land is
fenced in as a reserve for the largest herd of buffalo in America. The
seven hundred and six animals of the original herd were purchased
by the Canadian government from a Montana rancher. That was less
than twenty years ago, but the herd increased so rapidly that it soon
numbered between seven and eight thousand. This was more than
could be provided for on the ranging grounds of the park, and it was
found necessary to slaughter two thousand of the animals. Some of
the meat was sold as buffalo steak, and the rest was dried and made
into pemmican for the arctic regions. An animal called the cattalo, a
cross between buffaloes and domestic cattle, which is noted for its
beef qualities, has been raised in large numbers at the Wainwright
Park.
When a transcontinental railway to the Pacific coast was first
proposed, the objectors to the project sarcastically called British
Columbia and western Alberta a “sea of mountains.” To-day these
same mountains, once considered merely an expensive barrier in
the path of the railways, have proved to be one of the largest factors
in building up what is said to be the fourth industry of Canada—its
tourist traffic. The business of “selling the scenery” has been
developed to such a degree that it is estimated that the national
parks of the Dominion yield an annual revenue of twenty-five million
dollars. In a year, more than one hundred thousand people travel
over the C. P. R. route alone. It is interesting to note that eighty per
cent. of them are Americans, and that there are more from New York
City than from the entire Dominion of Canada.
The Canadian Pacific has for years led in exploiting the scenic
wonders of Canada. It carries tourists over the mountains in summer
in open observation cars, and adds to their comfort by using oil-
burning locomotives on its passenger trains. It has a half dozen
resorts in the Rockies where one may enjoy all the comforts of a
modern city hotel or the rugged pleasures of a wilderness camp. It
has established a colony of Swiss mountaineers brought from the
Alps to act as guides for mountain climbers. It has cut new trails
through the country and has sent out geologists to map the
unexplored territory.
Even the names of scores of peaks and valleys originated with
the Canadian Pacific. Mount Sir Donald, one of the mightiest of the
Selkirks, was so called in honour of Lord Strathcona, who was a
power behind the building of the railway, and who drove the final
spike uniting the east and west sections of the transcontinental line.
Mount Stephen was named after the first president, and Mount
Shaughnessy after a later one. The Van Horne Glacier in the
Selkirks and the Van Horne Range have the same name as the
famous builder of the Canadian Pacific, and Mount Hector was
named after the intrepid explorer who discovered the Kicking Horse
Pass.
Indeed, that railway has become so great a booster of the
Dominion’s natural show places that it has even been given credit for
supplementing nature in the matter of scenery. The story is told of a
woman who had just had her first view of the mighty crystal mass of
the Illecillewaet Glacier towering thousands of feet above the railway.
She stared in open-eyed and incredulous wonder. Then she
exclaimed:
“It ain’t real! The Canadian Pacific put it there for advertising!”
CHAPTER XXIX
THROUGH BRITISH COLUMBIA TO THE
COAST

British Columbia is the third largest province of the Dominion of


Canada. It has an area as great as that of France, Italy, Belgium,
and Holland combined. It extends from the United States boundary
to Yukon Territory and Alaska, and, except for the northeastern
section, it is all plateaus and mountains and valleys. The interior
table-lands have an average elevation of three thousand feet. They
contain some good farms and dairies, but the chief wealth of the
province is in its forests, fisheries, and mines.
I have crossed this great territory often on my way westward,
and have at times gone southward from Golden into the Kootenay
country. This is far below the main line of the Canadian Pacific
Railway. Another line of the Canadian Pacific crosses the region
from the Crow’s Nest Pass.
In the mighty hills of the Kootenays I saw the headwaters of the
Columbia River. Its source is only a few hundred feet from the
Kootenay River, which at this point is a good-sized stream. The
Columbia flows north for one hundred and eighty miles, and then
makes a sharp bend and turns to the south. The two rivers meet
after each has completed about four hundred miles of its course, the
parent stream of the Columbia crossing the United States border to
the Pacific. Before meeting, the two rivers wind in and out among the
hills, now in narrow streams, and now in long, winding lakes that
make one think of Como and Maggiore on the borders of Switzerland
and Italy. They are walled in by peaks that rise almost straight up for
hundreds of feet. Their waters are so clear that one can stand on the
slopes high above them and see the fish swimming in the streams
far below. The sides of the hills are covered with fir and tamarack,
and their tops are often capped with snow.
The Columbia and the Kootenay, by their circling courses, have
made a mighty island in the interior of British Columbia. If you will
imagine two gigantic wish bones, the tips of which are touching each
other, enclosing a diamond of mountainous land larger than the state
of Ohio, you will have an idea of the curious formation that Nature
has created here. A short canal that connects the two rivers near the
headwaters of the Columbia makes the island complete. The valleys
of these two streams, containing a million acres or so, are growing in
importance as a mixed farming, fruit growing, and dairying region.
The Kootenay country has also some of the richest mineral
deposits of the Rockies. It has gold, silver, copper, coal, iron, and
lead. The coal deposits near the Crow’s Nest Pass are said to
contain thousands of millions of tons, and near them are thousands
of coke ovens blazing away. Not far distant are deposits of hematite
ore, upon which the Canadians may some day build up a big iron
and steel industry.
Coming farther on into British Columbia, I took a steamer
through Kootenay Lake and stopped at the town of Nelson, which is
in the heart of the mining country. There I talked with one of the men
who opened up some of the big silver and lead deposits more than
two score years ago. Said he:
“There had been a rush to this region, and I came in with five
other prospectors. When we got to the camp I suggested that our
party see what we could find in a mountain across the valley. We set
out with only two days’ provisions. Almost as soon as we started up
the hill we struck some float rock that showed signs of silver and
lead, and on the following day we discovered a great mass of
galena, which was from twenty-five to thirty feet wide. There were
boulders of lead ore close by, and we at once staked out our mine. It
proved to be a rich one, and was eventually sold for more than a
million dollars.”
This whole region is a treasure house of minerals. Mining
operations were carried on for years near Phoenix in one of the
biggest copper beds of the world. The metal lay in a great mass two
hundred feet wide and more than a half mile in length.
The millions of tons of ore taken from the Phoenix mines were
fed into the smelter at Grand Forks, which stands on the banks of
the Kettle River, shadowed by mighty mountains. For years it
annually produced millions of pounds of copper, and in addition silver
and gold worth a million dollars or more. The smelter was closed in
1919 with a record of having smelted fourteen million tons of ore,
and the mines ceased operations that same year.
In the meantime, the Granby Company, which owned the mines
and the smelter, had begun to take copper out of the Le Roi mine at
Rossland, a few miles to the east. Shafts there have been sunk more
than two thousand feet into the earth, and there are about ninety
miles of underground workings. This same company, which is owned
largely by American stockholders, operates the Hidden Creek copper
mines at Anyox, the biggest in British Columbia. They are located on
the coast near the Portland Canal, hundreds of miles to the
northward and only a short distance from Alaska. In one year they
produced thirty million pounds of copper. Other mines are worked on
Vancouver Island and on Howe Sound north of the city of Vancouver.
The Canadian Rockies, with three hundred peaks
more than ten thousand feet high, offer thrills aplenty
for even the most seasoned mountain climber. Alpine
guides have been brought here from Switzerland and
have established a colony in British Columbia.
The line of the Canadian National Railways
through Yellowhead Pass, the lowest gap in the
Canadian Rockies, lies near Mt. Robson, 13,068 feet
high, and the tallest peak in all the Dominion.
Although the deposits of the Boundary District have been
practically worked out after yielding twenty million tons of copper ore,
British Columbia still has more than half the copper output of the
Dominion. Its total annual mineral production is worth more than six
hundred million dollars. Of this, coal and coke make up about one
third. Silver, lead, zinc, and platinum are also mined.
Gold was first discovered in British Columbia on the Fraser
River. That was around 1857, just as the California placers had
begun to play out, and thousands of prospectors rushed here from
our Pacific coast. Many fortunes were made in a single season, and
by 1863 the placer mines had an annual yield of more than three
million dollars’ worth of gold. The total production to the present time
has been valued at more than seventy-five million dollars.
All of this gold was recovered by the pick and shovel and without
the aid of machinery. Hydraulic mining was not introduced until the
easily accessible gold had been washed out by primitive methods.
The lode mines were not worked to any extent until 1893, but these
are now producing more than the placers.
Northwest of the Boundary District we take a flying trip through
the Okanagan Valley, famous as a fruit-growing region. Apples from
here are shipped all over the Dominion. They are sold three
thousand miles away in eastern Canada in competition with those
grown in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. The region has been
developed largely through irrigation, and as we travel through it the
green of the watered areas stands out in sharp contrast to the sun-
baked dry lands of the hills. British Columbia has forty thousand
acres in fruit, and it ships more than a million boxes of apples a
season. The interior valleys have been found to be well adapted to
raising peaches, plums, grapes, and small fruits as well.
The chief city of British Columbia, as well as Canada’s most
important Pacific port, is Vancouver. It is beautifully situated on
Burrard Inlet on a site discovered in 1792 by Captain John
Vancouver. In 1865 a lumber mill was started on the inlet and a
settlement grew up here. About twenty years later the town was
entirely destroyed by fire, so that the city of to-day was really
founded in 1886.
Vancouver is about the same size as Omaha, and is the fourth
largest city of the Dominion. It is the terminal of the Canadian Pacific
and Canadian National railways, and of several roads from the
States. It has steamship lines to Hawaii and China and Japan and
also to the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. There are coast
lines to Seattle, Victoria, Prince Rupert, and Alaska.
Let us go for a motor ride about the city. The Vancouver climate
is warmer and more moist than that of the south of England, and
flowers can be seen blooming in the gardens all the year round. On
Shaughnessy Heights are the beautiful homes of Vancouver’s
millionaires, and farther out is Stanley Park. Here, overlooking the
Narrows through which the ships enter the harbour, are thousands of
giant cedars and Douglas firs, some of them one hundred and fifty
and two hundred feet high.
We find Vancouver’s commercial districts busy and crowded. At
the wharves we see twenty ocean steamers loading lumber to be
carried to all parts of the world, and learn that sixteen million feet are
shipped from here in one month. Vancouver is increasing in
importance as a wheat-shipping port. It sends a million bushels or
more to the Orient, and twice as much to Europe by way of the
Panama Canal.
Eighty miles across the Strait of Georgia from Vancouver is
Victoria, British Columbia’s capital, noted for the architectural beauty
of the provincial government buildings. It lies at the southern end of
Vancouver Island, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the
snow-capped Olympic Mountains on the mainland. It is considered
one of the most English of Canadian cities, not only in climate and
aspect, but in the customs and traditions of its residents. It is the site
of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, one of the largest of its
kind in the world.
CHAPTER XXX
PRINCE RUPERT

I am at the north terminal of the Canadian National Railways and


the port of the shortest Pacific route to the Orient. Prince Rupert is
located on an island in a beautiful bay five hundred miles north of
Vancouver and only thirty miles south of our Alaskan boundary. Its
harbour is open all the year round. It is fourteen miles long, is
sheltered by the mountains and islands about it, and large enough
for all the demands of travel. The town reminds me of Jaffa, the port
of Jerusalem. It is right on the sea, and the buildings climb up and
down the mountains of rock close to the shore. The chief difference
is that the hills of Jaffa are bleak and bare, while those of Prince
Rupert are wooded and clad in perpetual green.
Until 1912, when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, now a part of
the Canadian National lines, chose this point for its western
terminus, this place was a forest. Pines and cedars covered the
mountains above, and the stumps still rising out of the vacant lots
look like the black bristles of an unshaven chin. The town has
several thousand people, and I venture it has thousands of stumps.
They are rooted in the crevices of the rock, and the ground between
them is matted with muskeg, which holds water like a sponge and
makes it impossible to go across country without thick boots or
rubbers.
Southern British Columbia is a land of winding
rivers and lakes, towering mountains and sheltered
valleys. Many of the little cities along the Columbia
and the Kootenay have been settled largely by
Britishers.
Apples from the irrigated orchards of the Pacific
slope are sold in eastern Canada, three thousand
miles away, in competition with the famous Nova
Scotia fruit. British Columbia often ships a million
boxes of apples a season.
Victoria, in its appearance, its climate, and its
people, is like a section of the south of England
transplanted to Vancouver Island. It is noted for the
beauty of its location and for its handsome provincial
parliament buildings.
The muskeg was one of the difficulties that had to be overcome
in laying out and building the city. Another and still greater difficulty
was blasting the hills. Every bit of the town is founded on bed rock,
and many places have had to be levelled with dynamite for the
business streets and foundations of buildings. The streets in the
residential section are paved with three-inch planks. They look like
continuous bridges, but they are substantial enough for heavy
teams, motor trucks, and automobiles. In some places the planks are
spiked to trestle-work from ten to fifteen feet high, and in others they
lie on the rock. The steep hills that extend back to the wooded
mountains behind Prince Rupert are so rough that to cut roads
through them would bankrupt the city many times over.
It was in company with a member of the board of trade and the
civil engineer who laid out Prince Rupert that I took an automobile
ride through the town. The plank roads are so narrow that turning-out
places have been built at the cross streets and curves, and the

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