Publisher's Synopsis
It having become my duty to deliver this, the inaugural lecture of the organ department attached to this institution, I have found myself considerably embarrassed as to choice of subjects. The trouble lay in the quantity of material at hand, and not in any lack of it. The history of the Organ runs back so far into the centuries, that no matter what point one might select for examination, it can scarcely be brought into the scope of a lecture except in a very empty and skeleton form. You will bear with me, then, for the superficial manner in which I shall be forced to treat many important points. As many of those present do not propose to make a study of the organ, I shall avoid treating of the instrument itself in any technical sense, and would offer a few thoughts on the subject of
