Luther Whiting Mason

Background

Luther Whiting Mason was born in Turner, Maine. He was the son of Willard and Mary (Whiting) Mason. His father died in 1834.

Education

Little Mason was apprenticed to his step-brother to learn the trade of last-making. At the same time he studied Greek, Latin, and music. He gave up his plan of becoming a missionary in favor of a career as a musician.

Career

Luther Whiting was practically self-taught in music, having acquired his knowledge, in part, by teaching his pupils. His talent as an instructor was such, however, that at the age of twenty-five he was superintendent of music in the Louisville, Kentucky, schools. Some years later, in Cincinnati, where he filled the same office, he prepared the "National System" of music-charts and books, the success of which established his fame in the school-music field. Called to Boston in 1865, he settled there and, as supervisor of music, improved musical instruction in the primary schools of the city. In the late seventies, when experts in education were invited by the Japanese government to bring Western ideas into Japan, Mason was asked to organize music education in the Japanese schools. He also gave piano lessons in the homes of the Japanese nobility, and taught singing to Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, who was visiting in Japan at the time. Returning to Boston with the increased reputation gained by his successful educational adventure in the Far East he compiled, in collaboration with George A. Veazie, Jr. , The National Music Course. His studies in Germany made in connection with this work, led him, with the approval of the faculty of the University of Leipzig, to issue it in a German version. Mason died in Buckfield, Maine, at the age of sixty-eight.

Achievements

• In Japan Mason introduced a modification of his music system in the public schools, as well as establishing a school of music with an orchestra that played both Japanese and European music. As governmental music supervisor he procured the introduction of the diatonic scale, and was so successful in his educational efforts that Western school music in general in Japan came to bear his name. When Mason left Japan in 1882 after three years, the University of Tokyo, which had opened its doors in 1877, bestowed its first doctor's degree to be awarded a musician upon him.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The National Music Teacher: A Practical Guide in Teaching Vocal Music Sight-Singing to the Youngest Pupils in Schools and Families; Designed to ... Music Charts and Music (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The National Music Teacher: A Practical Guid...)

  • New Second Music Reader, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (The prevalent desire for novelties has led many friends o...)

  • The Educational music course. Fifth reader

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • The New Third Music Reader

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Fifth Reader

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Connections

Mason married Hannah Ellis Allen, daughter of Hezekiah Allen & Juletta Whiting, in Oct 1844 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Father:

Willard Mason

Mother:

Mary (Whiting) Mason

Wife:

Hannah Ellis Allen Mason

22 August 1813 - 6 May 1896

Daughter:

Virginia Almira Mason Irish

9 November 1851 - 29 September 1929

Daughter:

Catherine Allen Mason

17 October 1854 - 2 August 1911

References

• Luther Whiting Mason: International Music Educator (Detroit Monographs in Musicology)