twofold. "First, to teach music scientifically and technically, with a
view to training musicians who shall be competent to teach and to
compose. Second, to treat music historically and aesthetically as an
element of liberal culture." This plan involved five courses of study,
and a brief description of them will indicate the scope of the task
undertaken by MacDowell.

There was to be, first, a "general musical course," consisting of
lectures and private reading, with illustrations. This course, while
"outlining the purely technical side of music," aimed at giving "a
general idea of music from its historical and aesthetic side," and it
treated of "the beginnings of music, the Greek modes and their
evolution, systems of notation, the Troubadours and Minnesingers,
counterpoint and fugue, beginnings of opera, the clavecinists,
beginnings of programme music, harmony, beginnings of the modern
orchestra, evolution of forms, the symphony and opera up to
Beethoven." A second course (this was not begun until the following
year) treated "of the development of forms, the song, romanticism,
instrumental development, and the composers for pianoforte,
revolutionary influences, the virtuoso, modern orchestration and
symphonic forms, the music-drama, impressionism versus absolute music,
color _versus_ form, the relationship of music to the other arts,
musical criticism." A third course treated of "general theory,
dictation, harmony, comprising chords and their mutual significance,
altered chords, suspensions, modulation, imitation, analysis, and the
commencement of composition in the smaller forms." A fourth course
comprised, in the first term, counterpoint, canon, choral figuration,
and fugue; in the second term, "free counterpoint, canon and fugue,
analysis, commencement of composition in the larger forms." The fifth
course treated of "free composition, analysis, instrumentation,