THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

183 Adelaide Road,
Hampstead, N.W.

[?November 1906]

I think that the 1^st paragraph on p.5, namely that dealing with the B.O.E.¹ needs modification and I should like to propose a resolution on this subject.
But 1^st I ought to explain that I am myself a member of the C^tee and was present when the report was drafted.  At the time I wished the paragraph to be omitted but when the rest of the C^tee considered this to be impossible I accepted the para[graph] believing it to represent the views of the C^tee as expressed by them in a letter which they sent to the B.o.E. Namely that they welcomed the idea of teaching folk-songs in schools but considered that the board was not consistently carrying out the scheme which they enunciated – that is what I understood the paragraph to mean.
I now find however that this sentence is capable of an entirely different construction indeed I find that several people to whom I have shown it take it for granted that it means unreserved approval of the board’s scheme, and that the words “consistently carried out” refer not to the B.o.E. itself but to school teachers and others to whom their suggestions are addressed.
Now the views of your C^tee are not at all this but are, as I understand, approval of the B.o.E’s general idea but disapproval of their failure to distinguish between the folk-song and other classes of song, and their failure to include more genuine folk-songs in their list of recommended songs.
This was the substance of a letter sent by his C^tee and signed by our president to the B.o.E.
In such a very important matter as this I feel that there should be no ambiguity.  Therefore I for one and I hope other members of his C^tee shall be very glad if the society will give us this opportunity of reconsidering this section of our report.
I should also like to add that we are the Folk Song Society – and that therefore however pleased we may be at the general improvement in music contemplated by the board we ought to confine ourselves to the folk song question and that any mention of any class of song known as “national” should be omitted as being outside our province and as leading to confusion between those two very distinct classes of music.

1. Board of Education.