First Sentence

"IN presenting a history of the development of American music, one ought, if following chronological sequence, to speak first of the songs of the Aborigines; but although these were, as a matter of course, the earliest melodies that can be traced on this continent, it will be found, when the subject is alluded to in a later chapter, that the music of the North American Indians is responsible for very little of the composition of later times, and seems to have been almost as absolutely "no thoroughfare" as the ancient chants of China."