Justine Ward

Justine Bayard Ward (née Cutting; Morristown, New Jersey, August 7, 1879 – Washington, D.C., November 27, 1975) was a musical educator who developed a system for teaching music to children known as the Ward Method. Early life Justine Bayard Cutting was born on August 7, 1879, in Morristown, New Jersey, to William Bayard Cutting (1850–1912), a founder of the Metropolitan Opera, and Olivia Peyton Cutting (née Murray; 1855–1949). Her siblings included William Bayard Cutting Jr. (1878–1910), who married Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe and was the father of Iris Origo, Bronson Murray Cutting (1888–1935), a U.S. Senator from New Mexico, and Olivia Murray Cutting (1892–1963), who married Henry James (1879–1947). Her paternal grandparents were Fulton Cutting (1816–1875) and Elise Justine Bayard (1823–1852), the poet. She was descended from the Bayard, Schuyler and Van Cortlandt families of Colonial New York, and was a direct descendant of Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, the last patroon of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, and William Bayard Jr. (1761–1826), a prominent New York City banker. Career She was the first woman in the world to develop an American elementary music education method, which predates the Kodály, Orff, and Dalcroze methods, and contains all the same basic elements, with an emphasis on music literacy and aesthetic interpretation.