taken a place of distinction in the works of Myslbek, Šimek, Seidan, Sucharda, and Šaloun.
Bohemia’s music is probably better known throughout the civilized world than any other branch of her creative art. This is largely due to the universal character of the language of music and to the eminence of her great tone poets, Smetana and Dvořák. Not that the history of music in the country begins with these two modern composers, but because they spoke in such musical forms and with such musical force that they arrested the attention of the world.
We read in the chronicles of the mediæval historians of the rôle played by music in the life of the Bohemian people, and we know that during the Hussite period the Bohemian hymnology attained a degree of excellence that has not been surpassed by later ages. The Bohemian school of music of to-day takes foremost rank among the music schools of modern Europe.
Bohemia’s position in the matter of education is likewise distinctive. Education of an elementary and secondary character was general in Bohemia several centuries in advance of Austria and Germany. The University of Prague antedated similar institutions in Germany by more than half a century. John Amos Komenský (known in America and England by the Latinized form of his
