Private Schools: Now & Then

Private schools now

In today’s competitive world of job searching, private for-profit universities and technical schools are climbing all over each other trying to get your tuition dollars. If you live anywhere in North America, you’ve likely seen the University of Pheonix ads meant to attract you to their online studies…

Seems a bit hokey to me. Why not go to a school whose purpose isn’t to make money for its share holders, and whose tuition rates won’t put you in the poor house for the rest of your working life?

Private schools then

That said, were things really any different back a century ago? How were things directly related to our saxophonic interests? For an example, let’s take the following ad that appeared in The Milwaukee Journal on November 24, 1922.

This ad is from the Kesselman-O’Driscoll Co. of Milwaukee.

Source: Google Newspaper Archives

So for a “small deposit and easy payments”, the ad promises you to can learn to play the Holton saxophone provided. Even better is that the payments can be made by the monies earned while playing the same saxophone. 

This is all possible of course, since the Holton saxophone is “EASY TO PLAY”. The best part of all, saxophonists are paid “high salaries…for short evening work in orchestras.” Geez… Where can I get a gig like that? 

Personally, I don’t see the saxophone and related books and supplies that would have been necessary, any different than the course books and materials used by today’s students in private universities and technical schools. The Holton saxophone was the tool the students required to learn their skill.

I’d be curious to know just how many of Kesselman-O’Driscoll’s saxophone students went on to become professional players. Sure, this was the height of the saxophone’s popularity, and bands and orchestras were using sax players everywhere. But just how bad did a player have to be before they were too bad to play professionally?

I’ve had lots of adult beginner students. Not one of them would have been good enough in only a few lessons to play professionally… Or perhaps I just suck as an instructor. Nah… I would say there are very few people in the world who can pick up any instrument, and play it proficiently enough in just a few lessons to go out and play professionally.

In conclusion then, the medium may have changed, but the message hasn’t

To me this Kesselman-O’Driscoll Co. ad reads like the early 20th century version of the TV and online ads for the private school of today: We’ll promise that you’ll achieve your career goals, just give us your money.