Musical Quotes

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     "Education without the arts - music, visual arts, theatre and dance - is education without the basics of the basics.  The arts lift the uses of our symbol systems to a dramatic new level of significance.  Thereofre, schools where the arts are active contributors to teaching and learning are schools that not only serve their students best but also point our society to the keystone of the basics of educations."
-Ernest Boyer, Persident of the Carnegie Institute for the Advancement of Teaching

    "I was born with God-given gifts of very talented musical ability and exceptoinal physical coordination.  I always needed prodding to practice piano, violin, cornet or French horn.  I had to be pulled away from any athletic participation.  Now, at 63, I look back on my athletic feats - All-American, All-Pro Quaterback, College and Pro Football Hall of Fame - and I can honestly say I would trade these all if I had been smart enough to pursue my musical career.  YOUNG PEOPLE - don't make the same mistake."
  -Otto Graham, Jr., former professional football player and coach
"I must study politics and war that my sons have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.. in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, and music."
-John Adams, 2nd President of the United States
    "How does one plausibly argue for spending school money on music when we are graduating illiterates?  Should we not be putting all our emphasis on reading, writing and math?  THe "Bak to Basics" curricula, while it has merit, ignore the most urgent void in our present system - absence of self-discipline.  The arts, - indeed requiring - self-discipline, may be more "basic" to our national survival than traditional credit courses.  Presently, we are spending 29 time more on science than on the arts, and the result, so far, is worldwide intellectual embarrassment."
-Paul Harvey, Author and Commentator
    "The arts are the only area of the curriculum that deal wiht all the human elements: intellect, emotion, aesthetic, spiritual, and physical."
-Arthur Foshay, Professor of Education, Columbia University
    "You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of arts.  But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise."
-Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States
    "U.S. Department of Educatoin data show that students who report consistently high levels of involvement in instrumental music during the middle and high school years show "significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12."
-James Catterall, Richard Chapleau and john Iwanaga, "Involvement in teh Arts and Human Development," 1999
    "All creative souls do not express themselves in teh written word; some sculpt, some build, and some challenge the depths of human understanding through the sounds of music.  No education is complete without awareness of music; music is an essential expression of the character of a society."
-William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education
    "The schools that produced the highest academic achievement in the United States today are spending 20% to 30% of the day on the arts, with special emphasis on music."
-International Association for Evaluation of Educational Achievement Test
    "We, this Nation of ours, could be the richest nation in the world.  We could be the most powerful nation int he world.  We could be the freest nation in the world - but only if the arts are alive and flourishing can we experience the true meaning of our freedom, and know the full glory of the human spirit."
-Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States
    "A Columbia University study revealed that students in the arts are found to be more cooperative with teachers and peers, more self-confident and better able to express their ideas.  These benefits exist across socioeconomic levels."
-The Arts Education Partnership, 1999
    "A study of 237 second-grade children involved with both piano keyboard training and innovative math software scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than students only using the math software."
-Amy Graziano, Matthew Petersen and Gordon Shaw, Neurological Reseach 21, March 1999
    "Why do we, as a free people honor the arts?  Well, the answer is both simple and profound.  The arts and the humanilties teach us who we are and what we can be.  THe lie at the very core of the culture of which we're a part, and they provide the foundation fromw hich we may reach our to other cultures so that the great heritage that is ours may be enriched by - as well as itself enrich - other enguring traditions."
-Ronald Reagan, President of the United States

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