The Centre For Social Cohesion

Plato explains the connection so in the Republic:

‘By maintaining a sound system of education and upbringing you produce citizens of good character; and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves, and better able to produce still better children in their turn…It follows that the amusements in which young children take part must be [well] regulated…This [early] stage of education is crucial … [because] rhythm and harmony penetrate deeply into the mind and take a most powerful hold on it, and, if education is good, bring and impart grace and beauty, if it is bad, the reverse. (401d)

Aristotle was no less emphatic than Plato as to the vitaly important civic role that a suitable early musical education had to play. In the fifth chapter of Book Vlll of his Politics which is given over to what should be included in the educational curriculum, he raises the question ‘whether or not music is to be included in education, and what it can achieve’. This is what he says on this question:

‘Now we all agree that music is among the most pleasant things… so that one might from that fact [alone] infer that the young should be taught it… Nevertheless we must ask whether… the true nature of music is not something of greater value… [M]usic has also some effect on the character and the soul…; we become of such and such a character through music…. [Some] tunes … are well known to put souls into a frenzy of excitement; … some types of rhythm … have steadying character others are unsettling…. It follows from all this that music has indeed the power to induce a certain character of soul, and if it can do that, then clearly … the young must be educated in it. And the teaching of music is particularly apt for the nature of the young.’ (Book Vlll, ch. V)

Exactly the same point was rightly iterated by Professor Susan Hallam of the Institute of Education whose research is reported to have been what has revealed that it is the lack of suitable teacher training that is behind the dearth of music in primary schools. She is quoted as saying: ‘It …aids relaxation and can influence moods and emotions.’

It occurs to me also that ‘the language of music’ has a universality to it that can transcend cultural barriers more effectively than virtually every other art form. Is it, therefore, too much to ask, in an age when our young seem to be growing ever-more delinquent and unmanageable, and when society seems in process of fragmenting along deeply divisive ethno-religious lines, that our educational system draws upon as never before the potential of music to uplift the souls of our children and unite them?

They might no longer all be able or willing to sing from the same hymn-sheet, although the demise of daily acts of worship in school assembly with hymn-singing has a lot to answer for here, but there is still plenty of scope within the sphere of secular and of so-called 'world music' to begin to build the bridges to unite children of our different faith groups, as well as elevate their taste.

No school should be eligible for receipt of any form of state funding, or even license to operate, that does not give over a generous part of the curriculum to music, particularly in the early years of learning.