The arguments which have hitherto appeared against the admission of
music into education, are those which were nearly coeval with the
society itself. The incapability of music to answer moral ends, the
sensuality of the gratification, the impediments it might throw in the
way of religious retirement, the impurity it might convey to the mind,
were in the mouths of the early Quakers. Music at that time was
principally in the hands of those, who made a livelihood of the art.
Those who followed it as an accomplishment, or a recreation, were few
and these followed it with moderation. But since those days, its
progress has been immense. It has traversed the whole kingdom. It has
got into almost all the families of rank and fortune. Many of the middle
classes, in imitation of the higher, have received it; and, as it has
undergone a revolution in the extent, so it has undergone another in the
object of its practice. It is learned now, not as a source of occasional
recreation, but as a complicated science, where perfection is insisted
upon to make it worthy of pursuit. In this new state therefore of music
new arguments have arisen on the part of the Quakers, which I shall now
concisely detail.

The Quakers, in the first place, are of opinion, that the learning of
music, as it is now learned, cannot be admitted by them as a christian
society, because, proficiency being now the object of it, as has been
before observed, it would keep them longer employed, than is consistent
with people, who are commanded to redeem their time.

They believe also that music in its present state, has an immediate
tendency to leading into the company of the world. In former tunes, when
music was followed with moderation, it was esteemed as a companion, or
as a friend: it afforded relaxation after fatigue, and amusement in
solitary hours. It drew a young person to his home, and hindered him