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Archives for 24 November 2020

📚 BOOKS & LIBRARIES: Happy Birthday to Andrew Carnegie!

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We love libraries here in the River Houses, and today happens to be the birthday of another person who also loved libraries: the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919).

Andrew Carnegie was born in a small weaver’s cottage in Dunfermline, Scotland, and grew to become one of the wealthiest men in the world — the Bill Gates or Warren Buffett of his day. Carnegie made his fortune in steel and railroads, two of the most rapidly growing industries in nineteenth-century America.

By the 1880s, Carnegie has amassed an enormous fortune, and at that point he started giving it away. And his favorite objects of philanthropy were public libraries. From the 1880s into the 1920s, Andrew Carnegie’s fortune helped to build more than 2500 libraries across the United States and around the world. These “Carnegie Libraries” (as they are collectively known) have provided educational opportunities for millions of people in small towns and big cities since they were first established, and they continue to do so today. There’s a good chance there’s one near you:

Over the course of its operation, the Carnegie Library program spent (in present-day dollars) roughly $5 billion, most of it on direct building construction. All the projects had to be proposed through the initiative of local communities, and each municipality was free to choose the style and layout of its library building — there is no single Carnegie Library “type.”

The Carnegie Library in Waterman, Illinois, one of hundreds across the United States. (Image: Wikimedia Commons.)

So if you’re looking for something extra to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week, why not offer a toast to Mr. Carnegie and his love of libraries, and to the generations of people around the world who have benefited from his generosity.

What educational discoveries have you made in your library this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❡ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website (riverhouses.org) has links to several important online library collections that we like to explore, as well as permanent links to WorldCat and the WorldCat Library Finder. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone) and give them a browse. 🔎

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚

🎵 🏡 THANKSGIVING MUSIC: “Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home”

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During this Thanksgiving week, why not make a beautiful modern classic from American composer Stephen Paulus (1949–2014) part of the peaceful background of your little family academy. It’s scored (I like to say) for a chorus of adult children and their mother, all making their way home for Thanksgiving. This magnificent performance is from the Dale Warland Singers, for whom the work was commissioned. The adult children’s voices begin, and then the maternal voice comes in to answer them at 2:20:

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“The Road Home” has a wonderfully complex history, not unlike the history of many Christmas carols, and that makes it an excellent little artistic lesson for your students. The tune is Paulus’ adaptation of an old hymn tune called “Prospect” that appeared in the shape-note collection Southern Harmony in 1835. In Southern Harmony it was attributed to an otherwise unknown composer named Graham and was paired with verses by Isaac Watts. In 1925, Henry Richard McFadyen (1877–1964) wrote another set of verses for the tune, and that combination of words and music, “The Lone, Wild Bird,” has recently been the subject of a beautiful new arrangement by American composer Frank Glass. In 2004, in response to a commission from the Dale Warland Singers, Stephen Paulus returned to the original tune “Prospect,” created a new choral adaptation, and paired it with another new set of lyrics, “The Road Home,” by his frequent collaborator Michael Dennis Browne (b. 1940):

The Road Home

Tell me, where is the road I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost so long ago?
All these years I have wandered,
Oh when will I know?
There’s a way, there’s a road that will lead me home.

After wind, after rain, when the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream in the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling from far away,
There’s a voice I can hear that will lead me home.

Rise, up, follow me, come away, is the call,
With love in your heart as the only song;
There is no such beauty as where you belong.
Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home.

Here’s a wonderful short interview with Browne in which he talks about working with Stephen Paulus and about the process of writing the words:

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And that’s how we came to have this lovely work, which is well on its way to becoming a worldwide choral classic. But you can study all that next week. This week, just listen and enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃

What musical discoveries have you made in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Arts & Music posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🗞