{"id":4342,"date":"2003-08-11T20:05:57","date_gmt":"2003-08-12T00:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=4342"},"modified":"2025-12-08T17:17:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T22:17:59","slug":"gaily-now-our-boat-is-sailing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/4342","title":{"rendered":"“Gaily Now Our Boat is Sailing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura loved singing school. It began with singing scales to limber up the voices. Then Mr. Clewett taught them a simple exercise, the first in the book… — These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 23, “Barnum Walks”<\/em><\/p>\n

     
\nI<\/span>n These Happy Golden Years<\/em>, one of the town activities participated in by Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder during their courtship was singing school. There was a singing school held in De Smet from February through April 1884, conducted by a Mr. Forbush. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that singing school was taught by Mr. Clewett; J.H. Clewett had taught the De Smet (academic) school during the spring 1883 term. A homesteader northeast of Manchester, Mr. Clewett often lived in De Smet until moving to California in the 1890s. It is possible that he taught a singing school that was never mentioned in the local newspapers.<\/p>\n

Laura’s singing school book was called The Conqueror<\/em>; it was written by C.E. Leslie and R.H. Randall and published in 1880 by The Chicago Music Company. Leslie wrote a number of hymnals and singing school books, and he traveled widely, promoting his program and holding classes in a number of states. Many of the songs in The Conqueror<\/em> were composed by Leslie or Randall. Laura’s singing school book originally cost seventy-five cents and is today on display at the Laura Ingalls Wilder \/ Rose Wilder Lane Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. The book begins as Wilder wrote in These Happy Golden Years<\/em>, with an explanation of notes, rests, and clefs. It then continues with simple exercises, starting with “do re mi fa sol la si do” and moving on to simple songs.<\/p>\n

Wilder went into more detail about singing school in both the Pioneer Girl<\/em> manuscripts and the manuscript for These Happy Golden Years<\/em>. Obviously an important and pleasant memory from her young adulthood, she included complete lyrics for a number of songs which were omitted from the published These Happy Golden Years<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\tPRACTICAL EXERCISE NO. 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gaily now our boat is sailing\n
O’er the blue and spark-ling wave,\n
Soon we’ll reach yon dis-tant har-bor,\n
Soon we’ll meet the fair and brave.<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/p>\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t\tGAILY NOW OUR BOAT IS SAILING<\/strong>\n
(from These Happy Golden Years<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Gaily now our boat is sailing,\n
O’er the blue and sparkling wave.<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t
   <\/p>\n

Used in the teaching of quadruple time, base clef, and the brace.\n   <\/p>\n

   <\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

     
\n
\n“Gaily Now Our Boat Is Sailing”<\/strong> (THGY 23)
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singing school exercise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4342"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17672,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342\/revisions\/17672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}