A LABORATORY OF MUSIC

One method of gaining knowledge is by conning the written experience of others; the college curriculum offers this method. Another method, almost as important, is that of trial-and-error--the curriculum of the School of Experience; this is fostered by the Dramatic Club and the Musical Club of the University. The aim of each is not to present old and well-known compositions, but new or unfamiliar works intermixed with products of home talent.

The program offered tonight by the Musical Club has aroused the interest of Boston and New York musical critics to discourses of flattering length, because of the proposed performance of works by two foreign composers--works which have never before been performed in this country. Aside from this introduction of unfamiliar compositions, the club will also present five pieces written by Mr. Ballantine of the Music Department. The program is therefore thoroughly representative of the club's aim and deserves wide heralding.

In the purpose which the Musical Club has set for itself and has been carrying out, it is aiding and abetting a proper ideal--that colleges should be the laboratories where new inventions may be tried out and, if not found wanting, introduced to the public--that colleges should not only be the treasure-houses of the old but the birthplaces of the new. And one of the advantages of these experiments is that they need not and should not be performed before an esoteric few. Assuming that undergraduates possess an average modicum of intelligence, their attendance at such an experimental performance as is to be given tonight is certain to broaden their appreciation, and also to add valuable weight to the acceptance or rejection of the work under discussion.