Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/508

 branches, and the first definite experiments with music as a topic of public school instruction.

Throughout the 18th century the profession of music acquired social status most often through the favor of courts and of wealthy or titled patrons. From the opening of the 19th, this dependent and somewhat servile relation gradually became less typical. Music was working toward independence, so that it might appeal to public respect not simply as an appendage of a luxurious or privileged class, but as one of the aspects of general popular culture.