who established music education in the boston schools as part of every child's education
Music education in the United States Public education in the United States first offered music as part of the curriculum in Boston in the 1830s, and it spread through the help of singing teacher Lowell Mason, after he successfully advocated it to the Boston School Committee in 1838. The committee ultimately decided to include music as a curricular subject because it was of a moral, physical, and intellectual nature. Music was considered moral because it played such a part in religion, as well as the fact that had been documented to produce "happiness, contentment, cheerfulness, and tranquility." It was of a physical nature because singing was exercise for the lungs. The committee justified music's intellectual nature by stating that it had been studied as a part of the quadrivium in the Middle Ages, and that it "contributes to memory, comparison, attention, and intellectual faculties."[1] (p.Â 13-14).