Too Much Tango [editorial]

When Professor H. Augustine Smith at the recent Sunday School Institute at the Chicago Theological seminary told of boys and girls doing tango steps to church music at the close of service, many thought he based his information on some sensational report, but the late telegraphic dispatches from Atlantic City seem to bear him out in his declarations. When the authorities attempted to stop Sunday tangoing by the bathers on the beach by having the bands play sacred music, the dancers adapted their steps to the music and did the hesitation to "Lead Kindly Light," and other religious music.
Dr. Smith says there is too much rhythm in our hymns. He declared that "an overdeveloped sense of rhythm made the child a hot-blooded animal rather than a worshipful soul."
Professor Smith traced the development of Christian hymns through the history of the church. Modern hymns, he said, are expressing the new social awakening of the church, and in the hymns of modern tendency Christ is termed "master workman," "rugged master," and "lover of the open road."
Discussing the decline of interest in church hymns, Professor Smith said: "We can never create an interest in the singing of hymns until we realize that a hymn is not a bit of poetry or doggerel to be sung while the windows are being opened or at some other period which is nor really a part of the service."