It is perhaps surprising that the subject of music education has not been more widely studied, particularly in view of its ability both to reflect and determine the changing fortunes of music and its role in society. Instrumental tuition and performance were better suited to the age and relative wealth of boys and girls in secondary education than singing when music instruction is available but vocal practice had proved its suitability in elementary schools. The overriding impression is, in keeping with eighteenth-century precedents, that state involvement had little to do with music's inherent worth but was rather concerned with harnessing its wider social benefits in order to maintain the status quo and encourage compliance. The consumption of music among middle-class amateurs, both male and female, during the nineteenth century preserved many eighteenth-century aesthetic and socio-economic priorities within the context of huge expansion.