Alexander Harley immigrated from Hungary to America when nine years old, settling with his family at first in Cincinnati and then in San Francisco. While there in the 1910s, he finished grammar and high school, working in his father’s painting business. Along the way, his violin became a life-long companion to his innate energy for musically inclined pursuits.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army at Camp Kearny during WWI and finished his service in the Whipple Barracks in Prescott, Arizona. The Army chaplain there, recognizing Harley’s talent as musician and potential in music education, arranged for a scholarship for him starting in 1920 at Northwestern University’s Department of Music. Within two years he completed his studies, graduated, and began employment as choir director at several churches in the northwest suburban area adjacent to Chicago, including St. Luke’s Church in Park Ridge. He was also employed part-time by several schools in the Fox River Valley as choral, orchestra and band director.
In 1930, the perfect opportunity to realize his ambition as a music educator came by way of an invitation from Charles Himel, Principal of the new Maine Township High School in Park Ridge, to join the faculty as Chairman of the Music Department.
In Harley’s first year at Maine, music was made part of the fabric of the new school’s educational system. First, by scheduling School Assembly ‘sings’ for the entire student body, to learn the new school’s songs for pep rallies and athletic events and enhancing development of a school spirit among the students. They also served to develop greater student musical literacy through exposure to standard American songs of the times. Mr. Harley inspired all music students at Maine to work up to their entire capacity in music, sharing freely their talents in collaboration with other students. In brief, he was becoming a great educator for the new Maine High School.
Mr. Harley was just beginning to demonstrate his conviction that that Maine High School would become a well-regarded music center. As the grim effects of the Great Depression began to weigh on our community, there arose a clamor to close the new School for a year or two to save on property taxes. During this period, performances of the Maine High School’s concert choir at many programs in Maine Township, at the Sunday Evening Club in Orchestra Hall, on Chicago radio stations, at state competitions, where numerous awards were received, credit was given to the Music Department for publicizing the value of keeping the School open.
Harley organized the Maine Music Boosters in 1931, to foster parental support for the Music Department, but also to raise funds for equipment, instruments, uniforms, risers, etc., needed for the School band, choir, and orchestra. When expansion of the School was proposed to accommodate increasing student enrollment, two referendums failed. Then, the Music Boosters went to work ringing doorbells in a campaign to explain the urgent need. The third referendum then passed voter approval; Harley’s merit as an organizer was established.
Perhaps Harley’s outstanding accomplishment in his 30-year teaching career in Park Ridge was the founding of the Maine Music Masters Society in 1936. Society membership would provide additional recognition for students at the junior and senior level giving generously of their time and talent through performances at school programs, as well as local church, civic and service club programs. This new ‘honor’ society was based on scholarship in academic and music-based courses. It was governed by a Constitution and By-Laws. Membership in the Modern Music Masters Society became the means by which Harley promoted a philosophy that could enrich the education of students drawn to orchestral, band and choral interests. The Society’s emblem key was designed by Alexander Harley’s wife, Frances, whom he met in 1930 during his time as choral director at St. Luke’s Church. The key depicted a music staff symbolizing music, the five lines of which represented the major attributes on which apprentices were selected: scholarship, character, cooperation, leadership, and service.
Because the program was so successful at Maine High School, in 1951 Harley was encouraged by the new Superintendent of District 207 to make the program available at the national level. A huge undertaking, but Alexander and Frances Harley stepped up to the challenge of providing materials to hundreds of high schools anxious to establish their own Charters as members of the newly renamed ‘Modern Music Masters’ Society, informally known as the Tri-M Society. During the years following, the Harleys were assisted in administering the national affairs of the Society by many friends and benefactors.
In 1983, the Tri-M Music Honor Society became an official program of the Music Educators National Conference in Washington, DC, when the affairs of the organization could no longer be directed from its modest headquarters in Park Ridge. By this time, 2,000 Chapters of the Tri-M had been chartered. On the occasion of its centennial in 2007, the Music Educators National Conference adopted a new name: The National Association for Music Education (NAfME). The Tri-M Music Honor Society remains an important part of the NAfME program, now expanded to include school grades from 6 – 12.
Alexander Harley lived a full life in Park Ridge as an innovative, energetic, and inspirational teacher, infusing his students at Maine High School with enthusiasm in support of their own musical interests, while conducting countless music programs in the School and on behalf of local community groups in Park Ridge. That life included participation in the festivities marking the 20th, 25th and 50th anniversaries of the founding of the Tri-M.
In 1986, Harley was inducted into the Maine East High School Wall of Honor, with the citation reading “Inspiring Chairman of the Maine Township High School Music Department (1930-1960), innovator of school-community music programs, founder of the International Music Honor Society Modern Music Masters.”
