Feb. 7, 1998 Washington DC "Towards A New Renaissance in Classical Education"
One of the highlights of the Symposium, sponsored by the Committee for Excellence in Education Through Music and the Schiller Institute, was a presentation by David Merrell, a 17-year-old high school senior from Suffolk, Virginia, of a science project on the effects of rock music versus Classical music on laboratory mice. Because of the importance of the study, both its actual findings and the fact that a high-school student conducted it, a full account of David's remarks to the symposium, together with relevant data from the study is available on the Schiller Institute website: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/programs/program_symp_2_7_98_tchor_.html#Music_Mice_Mazes

David devised a similar project, for the Virginia regional and state science fairs, in which he won top honors. He carried out the experiment over two years, significantly improving it in the second year. His hypothesis was that music will have an effect on the learning abilities of white male mice: Classical music will have a positive effect, whereas rock music will have a negative effect.