It is hoped that this book may so present the chief types
of musical art as to assist readers to distinguish for them-
selves its great masterpieces, to understand their aims and
methods, and to respond to their appeal. Only as we Ameri-
cans learn to react individually to art, resisting the herd
opinions that are so easy and so false, can we become dis-
criminating enough to acclaim the good and reject the bad.
In the coming decades we are to wield much power in music,
and it is important that we should make ourselves intelligent
judges of what is new as well as seasoned lovers of the old
but ever youthful beauty we call "classic."

Again, it is only through such independence that we can
hope to raise our taste above provincialism and give it free-
dom and reach -- let it breathe the air of the world. The
smug self-satisfaction, the narrow nationalism into which
inexperience so easily falls can never satisfy those of us
who have once really known and loved masterpieces. We
shall be on our guard against that strange sort of "patri-
otism" that would give America anything less than the best,
wherever it may have been produced. We shall know that
in art the only frontiers are those that separate mediocrity
from excellence.

Norfolk, Connecticut
August 17, 1924.