Grace Wilbur Conant

Grace Wilbur Conant was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 9, 1858, and died at Malden on April 7, 1948. Surviving biographical information is limited, but her publications reveal a sustained vocation in children's music and religious education. She served for at least six years from 1908 as musical editor of the Kindergarten Review and sometimes published under the pseudonym A. B. Ponsonby.

Conant collaborated with Frances Weld Danielson on Songs for Little People, a collection designed for Sunday school, kindergarten, and home use. Her most important connection with this hymn came through Worship and Song, the 1913 Congregational church-school book she edited with Benjamin S. Winchester. Its preface credits her cooperation in a project intended to provide both historic hymns and new material suited to the thought and feeling of young people.

For that collection Conant composed JUVENTAS, the principal tune printed with Mathams's Now in the Days of Youth. The same page also permitted DIADEMATA as an alternative, and later books largely favored Elvey's older melody. JUVENTAS consequently remained rare, but its first-printing status documents Conant's direct role in shaping the hymn's original musical presentation. Her later writings included a 1917 critique of contemporary religious songs and additional collections for children.