Eight Kansans, the third largest state delegation, were among the sixty-nine music educators who founded of the Music Supervisors National Conference in Keokuk, Iowa, on April 12, 1907. They were a representative sample of Kansas music educators at the turn of the century. They taught in elementary and secondary schools and in higher education institutions. They taught general music, vocal music, and instrumental. Then, as now, Kansas music educators worked in state, regional, and national associations to advance the profession.
Kansas had been involved in the predecessor organization, the National Education Association's Music Education Department, from as early as 1886. In July 1316 of that year the NEA and its Music Education Department (founded in 1884) met in Topeka. There Kansans had an opportunity to hear papers by Oliver S. Wescott of Chicago; Sara L. Dunning of Malone, New York; N. Coe Stewart of Cleveland; Hosea E. Holt of Boston, and Theodore F. Seward of New York City. As was typical in those years, the papers were on topics of paramount concern to the nation's music educators, and the authors and presenters were national leaders in the field.
Six years after the Topeka meetings Music Education Department members elected George Carothers Young, a music supervisor from Wichita, to serve as their secretary. Young later delivered a paper, "The Value of Music in Public Education as a Means of Discipline and Culture," at the Department's meetings in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1892. In that paper Young quoted authorities familiar then and now: Plato, Martin Luther, Lyman Beecher, Margaret Fuller, and Thomas Carlyle. Young argued that music could enhance children's mental and spiritual development. Music's office was cultivating the imagination and thereby "touching the life of the soul far beneath the analytic process of thought."
Just prior to the turn of the century, another Kansan, Mrs. Gaston Boyd of Newton, became active in the NEA Music Education Department. In 1897, Mrs. Boyd joined with Philip C. Hayden, then at Quincy, Illinois, and Frank W. Westhoff of Decatur, Illinois, to plan the formation of a national federation of music teachers in conjunction with the NEA. At the meetings that year in Milwaukee, Mrs. Boyd was also a respondent to a paper on teaching rhythm. She also participated in the department meetings in Los Angeles in 1899. At 1901 meetings in Detroit, the department elected her to serve as secretary of the department.
When Hayden, then supervisor of music at Keokuk, wrote to music supervisors in the mid-West on November 27, 1906, announcing his plans for a meeting, two Kansans, William B. Kinnear of Minneapolis, Kansas, and Jessie L. Clark of Wichita responded immediately. Kinnear and Miss Clark were both active in the NEA Music Education Department, as was Hayden. They and twenty-three others served as the program committee for the founding meeting.
In 1907, Kinnear was the music supervisor in Minneapolis. He was active in professional organizations. In 1905, he was chair of the Kansas State Teachers Association's music education department. When Hayden's call for the Keokuk meeting came in the fall of 1906, Kinnear responded by suggesting that the proposed meetings take up questions like "How to deal with balky teachers, balky boys, grading pupils, unmusical teachers and children, course of study, legislation in school music."
Jessie Lillian Clark was born in Kingston, New York, November 2, 1863. She had taught several years at the Kingston Academy and in graded schools in various other New York communities from 188792. Her first NEA Music Education Department meeting was at Toronto in 1891. The following year, Young had moved on to become a music supervisor in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Miss Clark became supervisor in Wichita. There she rose to prominence, organizing a high school chorus in 1893, a high school orchestra and mandolin club in 1896, and boys' and girls' glee clubs in 1899. She was also active in the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Education Department and presented papers to that group in 1895, 1896, and 1903.
In March 1907, Hayden reported on final preparations for the Keokuk conference. Among the suggestions made for the program was one by William T. Early, of Independence, Kansas. Mr. Early proposed the following topics for consideration: "I. The relative importance of individual work in the music recitation, II. The place of written work and what to write, III. Falling from the pitch, IV. What should the music course of study include, and V. What is the correct aim in music study?" Mabel M. Clarke of Chanute, Kansas, suggested "Efficiency of the grade teacher," and "High school music‹How much time?" Hayden's preliminary program announcement had a session on music terminology with Kinnear as chair.
Hayden listed the names of people who had endorsed the original call for the conference. These included Miss Clark, Kinnear, Early, Charles A. Boyle of Emporia, E. J. Leach of Junction City, and Mary S. Thomas of Waterville. People who had notified Hayden they were coming in addition to the original endorsers were Clarke, Mildred Hazelrigg of Topeka, Melvin S. Bushong of Olathe, and Florence Gray of Kansas City, Kansas. The executive committee decided to charge each member attending the conference a registration fee of fifty to seventy-five cents to cover costs.
The conference took place as advertised, April 1012, 1907, in the Presbyterian Church in Keokuk. Following an opening prayer and a welcome from the Keokuk school superintendent, the assembled supervisors named an auditing committee of three including Jessie Clark. Miss Clark noted at the opening session that "there had been a good deal said of making the conference a permanent organization, and on vote it was decided to consider the matter of permanent organization Friday morning." The Wednesday morning session concluded with a paper by Alys E. Bentley of Washington, DC, on children's voices.
On Wednesday afternoon Edward Bailey Birge led a discussion on authorized versions of national songs. Early and Kinnear participated in the discussion. The session closed with a performance by the Keokuk High School Girls' Glee Club. Birge then presented a paper on individual singing to which Early and Miss Clark responded. Wednesday evening's program had three sessions: singing national songs, testing children's voices, and written work in music classes.
Thursday began with Hayden using his classes in the Keokuk schools to demonstrating his theories on teaching rhythm. Kinnear and Early participated in the discussions which followed the demonstrations. Thursday evening's program included papers by Charles A. Fullerton of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Kinnear, who talked on music terminology. Kinnear's presentation was brief, outlining the major questions facing music educators in striving to adopt a universal terminology for use in their classrooms and publications. Hayden questioned several of the terms Kinnear proposed, and Kinnear responded that the terms and their definitions had resulted from consultation among the committee.
On Friday morning, Mrs. Clark opened the meetings at ten o'clock with reports from chairs of various ad hoc committees. Following Hayden's report on the success of the conference, Early said that "All here recognize that the idea of getting this meeting together here has been a great thing, and we are all indebted to Mr. Hayden for this service. It would be fitting to appoint a committee on resolutions to express our approval on these matters." Mrs. Clark then Early; Elwood L. Philbrook of Rock Island, Illinois; and Anna M. Allen of Peoria, Illinois, to serve as the committee on resolutions. "Then followed perhaps an hour of somewhat aimless discussion," in which Early and several others talked about what course would be best to follow in regards organizing the conference. "After several amendments had been made and withdrawn, a motion was made and carried that a permanent organization be formed." The group then witnessed one of Hayden's fifth grade classes perform and exercise in sight reading, after which Thaddeus P. Giddings read a paper on The Child Voice."
On Friday afternoon, the conference resumed with a performance by the Carthage (Missouri) High School Girls' Glee Club. At the business meeting which followed, Mrs. Clark appointed a committee on organization; Herman E. Owen of Madison, Wisconsin, Charlotte Field of Findlay, Ohio, and one other whose name the recorder failed to note. After the business meeting was a discussion of Giddings's paper and a paper by Robert Foresman of New York City: "The Values of Written Work in the Schools."
The committee on forming a permanent organization produced a constitution for the new organization, and the supervisors elected a slate of officers which included Miss Clark as a member of the Executive Committee. Early gave the report for the committee on resolutions, which the supervisors adopted unanimously. The conference concluded.with a reminder that the evening program would feature a performance of Jessie L. Gaynor's The House That Jack Built.
Three Kansans, Miss Clark, Kinnear, and Early had participated actively in the organization of the Keokuk conference and had a hand in founding the permanent organization and running it in its first year. Five others, Boyle, Thomas, Mildred Hazelrigg of Topeka, and Bushong attended the meetings, though no notice of their participation is in the official record. Mildred Clarke, though actively involved in planning the meeting apparently did not attend it.
After the meetings, Miss Clark returned to Wichita where she enjoyed a very successful career in a growing frontier community. She gave papers at the Kansas State Teachers Association meetings in 1908 and 1909 and served on the nominating committee and as secretary pro tem of the NEA Music Education Department in 1912. She died in Wichita, on June 28, 1925, and the Wichita public school system honored her memory by naming an elementary school for her in 1953.
After Keokuk, Kinnear remained active in both the MSNC and the NEA Music Education Department. He served as treasurer of the MSNC in 1910, was on the NEA Music Education Department Committee on Nominations in 1911. In 1912, he moved to Larned, Kansas, were he served as music supervisor. He was secretary pro tem of the NEA Music Education Department in 1913 and 1914.
Early was a music supervisor from Independence. He was chair of the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Department in 1907.
Charles Adin Boyle was the only music faculty member from a Kansas institution of higher education to attend the Keokuk conference. He had taught harmony and voice at Ottawa (Kansas) University from 1883 to 1893. In 1893 he moved to the Kansas State Normal School in Emporia (now Emporia State University). At the Normal School, Boyle initiated many changes in the music education program, hired outstanding faculty, and increased student enrollment. His wife was also on the faculty there. He was an active participant in music education organizations and activities, and he was very much interested in music in Kansas classrooms, particularly at the elementary level.
In 1895, Boyle composed "Wave the Old God," a school song for the Kansas State Normal School. Boyle edited and published a song book for elementary students in 1903, and he wrote a four-year course in public school music in 1907. In April of that year, just a few days before going to Keokuk, Boyle directed a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance in Emporia. In 1908, Boyle and his wife Harriet (Hattie) resigned from the Normal School and that fall opened a private music studio, the Emporia Music School. The new faculty member who replaced Boyle at Emporia was a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, Frank A. Beach.
Mary Stevenson (Mrs. Chester) Thomas was a music supervisor in Waterville, Kansas. She was Secretary of the Kansas State Teachers ASsociation Music Department, 190507. In December of 1907 she read a paper on "Original Work" at the KSTA meetings. In 1908, Thomas chaired the music department of the Association, and in 1909, she presented a paper on "The Function of the Teachers' Institute" before that organization. At the 1910 meetings, Mrs. Thomas joined with Frank A. Beach to offer a motion recommending that the state board of education appoint a committee of musicians to develop a course of study in public schools music.
Mildred Hazelrigg was a music supervisor in Topeka. She, too, was active in the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Department, beginning in 1902 when she read a paper on correlation of music with other subjects at the annual meeting in December. At the 1910 meetings, she spoke on "A Standard Curriculum in Public School Music." Hazelrigg chaired the department, 191012. In 1919, she married C. Frank Drenning and retired form music teaching. The Topeka schools then hired three people to replace here: Grace V. Wilson, Blanche Baker, and Katherine Sentz.
Melvin S. Bushong was a music supervisor in Olathe in 1907. It fell to him to report on the Keokuk conference to the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Department in December 1907. As late a 1926, he was teaching vocal music at Olathe High School.
Little evidence of Florence (Mrs. Hamilton) Gray has survived. The only record of her activity is in the School Music Monthly's listing of the founders. That record says only that she was from Kansas City, Kansas.
Three people who participated in the Keokuk founding meeting paid visits to Kansas in subsequent years. Giddings spoke to the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Department meeting in Topeka in 1911 on "The ABC Method of Teaching Music." Frances Elliot Clark came to Topeka in 1912 to speak to the department on "The Cultural Value of hearing the World's Greatest Music." At that time, Mrs. Clark was manager of the Victor Company's public school music department. Another charter member of MSNC, Alice Inskeep of Cedar Falls, Iowa, spoke at the same meeting on "The Practical Versus the Artistic in Public School Music."
Since 1907, large numbers of Kansas music educators have participated in and contributed to the MSNC, MENC, and MENC‹The National Association for Music Education, as well as the Kansas State Teachers Association Music Department, the Kansas Music Educators Association, and numerous other organizations concerned with music in Kansas schools. Five Kansans, Frank A. Beach of Emporia, W. Otto Miesner of Lawrence, Edgar B. Gordon of Winfield, Joseph E. Maddy of Wellington, and Donald L. Corbett of Wichita, have served as president of the MSNC or the MENC.
Like the Keokuk Eight, Kansas music educators of today seek ways to improve their own teaching, share experiences with colleagues, and have, as Early's committee on resolutions put it "a most successful conference and a royal good time."