songs. The explanation given by The Nashville Banner is the lack of musical education among the men of the South. Musical advantages are offered to the Southern girls, but Southern young men are seldom encouraged to take a musical education. The Banner evidently believes that the successful song writers are limited to the male persuasion. While there are some notable exceptions, history shows this to be substantially true. It is, nevertheless, a little remarkable, as one writer says, that a great section of the country, having such distinctive traits and characteristics, should be so little represented by native song writers.

It is conceded on all hands that "Dixie" is the most popular of the songs of the South. It was not a product of the war, and was not made in the South; but a peculiar and fortuitous circumstance led to its adoption by the Confederate army in 1861, and it soon carried the people into a state of impassioned emotion, and to-day its popularity is so great that in reality it has become one of the songs of the Union. President Lincoln had great admiration for the tune, possibly because he heard it sung to Republican words in the never-to-be forgotten campaign of 1860. Shortly after the surrender at Appomattox, he requested the band to play "Dixie," pleasantly remarking that "as we

have captured the Confederate army, we have also captured the Confederate tune, and both belong to us."

There has been considerable dispute over the authorship of "Dixie," and to make its interesting story as clear and concise as possible, and at the same time true to history, I quote from an article written in 1895 by Mr. Edward W. Bok, the distinguished editor of The Ladies' Home Journal, and first published, I believe, in the Pittsburg Dispatch:

"It is a fact not widely known that Daniel D. Emmett, the venerable and retired minstrel, author of 'Dixie,' is now living in Mount Vernon, Ohio. If he survives another anniversary of his birth he will round out eighty years, having been born in the place where he lives on October 29, 1815.

"Emmett is full of little anecdotes of the two great Shermans, William T. and John, who used to go to school at Gambier, near Mount Vernon, and has many fond recollections of romps about the hills with them, of the great times they had at playing 'shinney,' and how the Sherman boys were never allowed both to be on the same side, for they were both leaders and were better separated and leading opposite forces.

"Mr. Emmett says that it was a fashion in

those days among the young people to try their skill at making verses and to sing them to some popular tune. 'Jim Crow' was a favorite in those days, and the boys and girls found great delight in fitting and rhyming words to sing to that tune. In this way, Mr. Emmett formed a taste for versemaking and singing, which later led him to minstrelsy. Mr. Emmett made his own verses and sang them to some popular tune. He traveled all over the United States, and was the favorite minstrel everywhere he went. His understanding of the negro dialect was perfect, as was likewise his rendering. His love of minstrelsy is still visible in him. His voice is thoroughly trained to the sweet tone of the melodious darky's voice, and a few old darky expressions and songs from him show at once that he has not lost his old-time understanding of them.

66

'Dixie Land,' which is really the proper name of the song, was written by Emmett in 1859, while he was a member of the celebrated 'Bryant's Minstrels,' which then held forth at No. 472 Broadway, in New York City. His engagement with them was to the effect that he should hold himself in readiness to compose for them a new 'walk-around' whenever called upon to do so, and to sing the same at the close of their performance.