"Imagine a member of Congress facing his constituents after voting to appropriate $200,000 to teach young people how to execute vocal gymnastics, or play on the fiddle. We are not so esthetic as that." So said the Indianapolis Journal on Feb. 25, 1888, in response to Jeannette Thurber's request for federal funding for her National Conservatory. Quoted in Jean E. Snyder's Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Renaissance, new from University of Illinois Press.
