ill 
 
 II I 
 
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 The 
 
 Musical Education 
 of the Child 
 
 HI 
 
 tewart Macpherso 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 
 i 
 
THE 
 
 MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 OF THE CHILD 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FOR TEACHERS. PARENTS 
 
 AND SCHOOLS 
 
 BY 
 
 STEWART MACPHERSON 
 
 Fellow and Professor, Royal Academy of Music, London; 
 
 Author of" Practical Harmony," "Form in Music," 
 
 " Music and its Appreciation," etc. 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 THE BOSTON MUSIC COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: JOSEPH WILLIAMS. LIMITED 
 
Educ- 
 Psych 
 
 Copyright, 1916, by JOSEPH WILLIAMS, Ltd. 
 
 Proprietors for U. S. A. THE BOSTON Music Co. 
 
 B. M. CO. 5070 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE following pages represent in the main the substance of 
 various lectures, addresses and articles delivered or written 
 during the last few years, on certain aspects of the musical 
 education of the young. In preparing them for issue in their 
 present form, I have thought it best to preserve the informal 
 style which best fitted the conditions under which they were 
 originally presented. I quite realize that if one had intended 
 in the first place to set forth, in book form, the thoughts 
 herein contained, they would often have been expressed some- 
 what differently. 
 
 Feeling, however, that to alter their manner would tend in 
 all probability to destroy whatever directness they might pos- 
 sess, I have ventured to leave them virtually as they first 
 appeared, merely adding a few fresh points which seemed to 
 drive home more completely the arguments advanced. It will 
 doubtless be noticed that some overlapping of idea occurs 
 from time to time in the course of these essays, and that a 
 topic developed in one is referred to, possibly at some length, 
 in another. 
 
 This has been inevitable owing to the fact that more than 
 once it has been necessary to approach the same subject from 
 different sides, and in relation to circumstances which in their 
 nature vary considerably. 
 
 I can only hope that any apparent verbal redundancy may be 
 compensated for by additional clearness, and by the emphasis 
 thus laid upon certain matters of fundamental importance. 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 LONDON, 1915 
 
 358.6 * 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 PREFACE iii 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 SOME AIMS IN MODERN MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 THE PART OF THE EDUCATIONIST, THE TEACHER AND THE 
 
 PARENT Music IN SCHOOL LIFE; ITS VALUE PRACTICAL PROB- 
 LEMS 1 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 APPRECIATIVE MUSIC STUDY: ITS MEANING AND 
 ITS VALUE 
 
 I. SUGGESTIONS FOR A COURSE OF CLASS- WORK IN SCHOOLS 
 AURAL TRAINING THE CHORAL CLASS CORRELATION WITH 
 INSTRUMENTAL WORK 17 
 
 II. THE AWAKENING OF AN INTELLIGENT APPRECIATION OF 
 MUSIC THE TEACHER'S PART 35 
 
 PART THREE 
 
 THE MUSIC-TEACHER: HIS AIMS AND IDEALS 
 
 THE TEACHER OF TO-DAY: His POSITION AND HIS RESPONSI- 
 BILITY THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE "AVERAGE" PUPIL 
 THE CULTIVATION OF THE AURAL AND CREATIVE FACULTIES 
 THE TEACHING OF HARMONY THE TRAINING OF THE TEACHER 
 CLASS TEACHING PERSONALITY NEED OF A WIDE OUTLOOK 
 AND BROAD SYMPATHIES 53 
 
PART ONE 
 SOME AIMS IN MODERN MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 " The whole development of true art is devised to 
 engage more and more of the finer mental qualities 
 .... and one of its greatest joys is to find that it helps 
 the imperfectly provided mind to attain fuller measure 
 of the finer qualities." g, R HUBERT PARRY 
 
 WE hear to-day much talk about the " educational ladder," 
 and the necessity of setting up some sort of machinery by 
 which an intelligent relationship may be made to subsist 
 between the various stages in the educational process. The 
 cry is all for a clear road from Primary School to University. 
 Whether we all agree, or not, with the desirability of 
 encouraging what, on the face of it, seems in the majority 
 of instances to be of very doubtful value namely, the hope 
 of University success in the minds of those who, in the main, 
 are as little likely to reach that goal as to reach the moon 
 we must all heartily endorse the axiom that every step in 
 true education should bear some conscious relation to every 
 other step, and be pursued with some definite end in view. 
 In other words, any part of a child's education that is under- 
 taken without some distinct object not necessarily, let us 
 hasten to add, a utilitarian object is practically wasted 
 energy, for it inevitably leads to a cul-de-sac no less disastrous 
 in its own way than the many " blind-alley " occupations 
 which are so familiar a phenomenon in modern life. 
 
 If we apply this thought to the teaching and learning of 
 music, 1 how does it all work out? What is the net result 
 of all the vast amount of effort honest, dogged, painstak- 
 ing effort that has been and is being expended throughout 
 the land in connection with the child's lessons in music? 
 For that the majority of music-teachers are some of the most 
 
 I am referring exclusively to the general musical upbringing of the 
 child, and am leaving out of consideration specialized music-study as 
 pursued at our great musical institutions. 
 
2 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 hard- worked and hard-working members of the community 
 men and women who bring to bear upon their work a degree 
 of zeal, energy and patience which those in many another and 
 better-paid walk of life might envy is in reality a com- 
 monplace of experience, a truism which few will care to deny. 
 
 And yet have we not at times an uneasy consciousness 
 that all has not been well, that much of this willing energy 
 somehow tends to get lost in transit, and that over and over 
 again the spectre of the " blind alley " rears its unhappy 
 form to dishearten and depress those who are giving so 
 largely in time and labor to the task of teaching ? 
 
 Many a teacher, of the right kind, has had forced upon 
 
 him in his moments of reflection, the somewhat arresting 
 
 thought, " What is it all to lead to? Why 
 
 6 - T S i. * am I teaching this child, who really has 
 music: To what ,. , ' . ' , * 
 
 is it to lead? little or no aptitude, to play the piano? 
 
 Why are her parents desirous that she should 
 learn ? What is the object of it all ? Is it only that after 
 years of struggling she may be able to play, more or less 
 badly, some sentimental ' Chant sans Paroles/ or some 
 none too meritorious ' Valse de Salon,' to a circle of 
 acquaintances who, if the truth were known, would often 
 much rather that she didn't? " And too often the answer 
 to such reflections is of a kind which makes the earnest 
 teacher wonder greatly whether such work is really worth 
 doing, in view of the fact that when the labor has been ex- 
 pended and the toll taken in time, energy and patience, the 
 total impression on the pupil in the end is so miserably small, 
 and its connection with his or her educational development so 
 hard to seek. And thus he is driven to the comfortless con- 
 clusion that at best all he does amounts just to " something 
 between a hindrance and a help," as Wordsworth says. 
 
 Something has been wrong: What is it? Where lies 
 the hope for better things ? In what direction must we seek 
 for the remedy ? First, it seems to me, comes the need for a 
 clearer recognition on the part of 
 
 I. The Educationist, 
 H. The Parent, 
 
 HI. The Music-teacher, of the aim and object of all 
 the hours spent on this one subject of music by the majority 
 of pupils during school age. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 3 
 
 To take, then, the case of the educationist (as in the main 
 represented by the headmistresses and headmasters through- 
 out the country), what is the attitude as- . 
 
 * -: - . / * A < 1 p % J* 16 Educationist 
 
 sumed by him towards the study of music ? 
 
 Does he see its drift or its function amongst educational 
 activities ? This is a very vital matter : many a music- 
 teacher has felt keenly the " cold shoulder " in respect of 
 his subject, for he has realized that at best it was often only 
 tolerated as an evil inevitable in a present imperfect state 
 of things, and that the hope was even cherished, in some 
 instances, of its being relegated to the scrap-heap with the 
 advance of public opinion on educational matters! Is 
 it to be wondered at, then, that in cases such as these he 
 tends to become detached from the rest of the teaching staff, 
 when he feels that he has so little in common with them in 
 the supreme task of educating the child when, in truth, 
 no one ever dreams of imagining that he can possibly have 
 any part or lot in it ? 
 
 Fortunately this condition of things is becoming rarer 
 every day, and the educationist himself is beginning to realize 
 that the study of music, on right lines, is by no means the least 
 valuable factor in modern education. And if the form 
 which this study has usually taken has seemed to him to be 
 singularly unproductive of the very results which he has 
 vaguely felt should be forthcoming from it, it may be well to 
 point out that the musician has been also to blame for having 
 been of so little use to the educationist in trying to get matters 
 straight. Too often he has concerned himself little, and 
 sympathized less, with the broader views of education 
 necessary in order to appraise the whole situation satis- 
 factorily, and to arrive at a working solution of the problem. 
 He has, in reality, regarded the child's music as a fact 
 in isolation, without relating it in thought to the many 
 other subjects which go to form the necessary material 
 of that child's whole mental development. Hence, until 
 comparatively recently, music in the average school has 
 represented little more than an attempt under adverse 
 conditions to teach pupils to play; with what results 
 all the world knows. It has too frequently been regarded 
 as a harmless amusement, with little or no educational 
 value; in other words, one of the unconsidered trifles of 
 life. 
 
4 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 The times are now, however, full of promise, and something 
 in the nature of a revolution is being created in the attitude 
 assumed towards the pursuit of the art in our schools. But, 
 when all is said and done, the one thing necessary if we wish 
 to see music " come into its own," is to be perfectly clear 
 in our own minds where the educational value of music 
 really lies, and then, by reasoned and reasonable argument, 
 to make it equally clear to those responsible for the cur- 
 riculum. Of this I shall have more to say later on. 
 
 Now to turn to the parent. Here is another crux. 
 Many a headmistress will be found to tell you that not a 
 The Parent ^ ew ^ ^ er cner ished plans for the educa- 
 
 tional advancement of the children under 
 her care have been frustrated by the impatience of the parents 
 for visible results. They little dream that the things that 
 matter most are those which, as a general rule, are least 
 subject to this rough-and-ready test of " results." Music 
 presents no exception to the rule, and yet it is no exaggeration 
 to say that this unreasoning demand that " Gladys " shall be 
 able to " play something " at the end of (say) a term's work 
 is answerable for a deplorable set-back to all real progress 
 towards the end which those responsible for the child's work 
 probably have in view. Personally, I should like to put 
 one or two very plain questions to every parent. They are 
 these : 
 
 I. " Why do you desire your child to learn music? " 
 H. " What is the object of all the hours she will spend 
 
 on this one subject? " 
 
 HI. "Is the end to be a species of ' genteel accom- 
 plishment,' or is it to be a new means of self- 
 expression for the child, a new bracing of the 
 intelligence, a gradual getting into touch with 
 the achievements of great men who have 
 chosen to use the more subtle medium of 
 musical sound to express and often to 
 express more wonderfully thoughts for which 
 others would use the language of words or the 
 colors of the palette? " 
 
 I put it that these are questions that have to be settled ; 
 they cannot be shirked. Music either is a subject of real 
 value in the development of the child, or it is not. If it is 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 5 
 
 not, it is better to " side-track " it altogether as waste of 
 time; if it is, then we must either see clearly ourselves, 
 or trust those responsible for the education of the child 
 to see for us, where and how it is valuable, and then allow 
 the proper steps to be taken for it to assume its rightful 
 place amongst other intellectual activities. 
 
 There can be no halting between two opinions if we are 
 to see this matter through to a finish. 
 
 When we begin to consider the position of the teacher 
 himself, and his attitude towards the whole question, we 
 find ourselves face to face with another and Th T h 
 totally distinct set of problems clamoring 
 for solution. The first of these I have already touched 
 upon I mean, the importance of his realizing that music 
 is only a part of the child's education, and that it is 
 necessary to view it in the light of its relation to the rest 
 of his studies. In this way, and in this way only, will the 
 music-teacher be led to think out for himself the best 
 means of presenting his subject for the consideration of 
 those whose duty it is to organize and direct the child's 
 work in its totality. By so doing he will inevitably be 
 brought to see that if he is to carry conviction as to the value 
 of his subject, he must be able to show that it can clearly 
 add its quota in the training of the child's faculties. When 
 he has reached this point in his reflections, it will, I think, 
 not be long before he is compelled to arraign before the bar 
 of his own reason much, very much, that has been accepted 
 without demur in the past. He will be driven to wonder 
 whether, save in comparatively rare instances, the average 
 music-pupil (by which I mean to imply the average pupil 
 of school-age, taught in the average way by the average 
 teacher) has gained very much in real love or appreciation 
 of music by what she 1 has been made to do. He will call to 
 mind from painful experience, perhaps that such a pupil 
 has often been lamentably deficient in musical perception ; 
 that her interest in music has been feeble and flaccid, and 
 that in many an instance its pursuit has been dropped 
 without a moment's regret so soon as her days of pupilage 
 were over. 
 
 1 I say "she" here, because by far the greater number of music- 
 pupils have been and still are girls. My remarks would apply perhaps 
 even more forcibly in the case of boys. 
 
6 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 Then, if he is honest with himself, he will ask how far 
 this has been the pupil's fault, and how far, if at all, he 
 has himself been responsible for the result. Has he gone 
 about the business in the right way? This profitable line 
 of thought will perhaps lead him to see that, taking 
 the matter in its broadest aspect, the sound educational 
 principles that have for long been admitted and understood 
 (even if not always acted upon) in the teaching of other 
 subjects, have been but very partially applied to the teach- 
 ing of music. Perhaps one of the reasons for this may 
 be found in the fact that the musician has, with the 
 impatience of rule and method somewhat characteristic of 
 the artistic temperament, been inclined to trouble himself 
 little, and to care less, about such matters as the scientific 
 presentation of the facts he has been called upon to im- 
 part to his pupils, or the psychology of the " human " 
 boy or girl whom it has been his duty to teach. He has 
 far too often regarded himself as the artist unfortunately 
 compelled, by force of circumstance, to be a teacher. Hence, 
 his method, if method it could be called, has been almost 
 wholly empirical. Now, do not let me give the impression 
 that I consider the work done under these conditions to be 
 valueless. Far from it : over and over again the strong 
 personality of a teacher has compensated to a large extent 
 for lack of scientific order in the presentation of his subject, 
 and the living, burning artistic impulse, characteristic of 
 his own nature, has communicated itself in no limited degree 
 to those under his care. 
 
 But the more general the teaching of our art becomes 
 and it is surely fairly general to-day and the greater the 
 army of teachers, the greater the need of 
 sound Principles to form the bed-rock of 
 principles the WOI% k to be done throughout the length 
 
 and breadth of the land. It stands to reason 
 that all are not born teachers, nor even born artists, in this 
 army of which I speak, and it is characteristic of the no- 
 table awakening that has taken place within the last few 
 years in connection with musical education, that scores of 
 teachers even those long in practice have made, and 
 are making, very real sacrifices to equip themselves more 
 thoroughly, and to bring themselves into line with the best 
 thought of the day. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 7 
 
 The question of the training of teachers is very much 
 to the fore just now, and is engaging the close attention 
 of earnest thinkers in all departments of . 
 
 educational life. The community is at last of Teachers' 
 becoming alive to the fact that teaching 
 is an art in itself, and that it is reasonable to expect some 
 grasp of its principles on the part of those who intend to 
 take upon themselves the important and responsible duty 
 of guiding the footsteps of the rising generation. But it 
 is not only necessary that the would-be teacher should 
 be theoretically conversant with these principles, but that 
 he should have opportunities of putting them to the test 
 under the supervision of those more experienced than him- 
 self. What is vitally needed is, that such a one should be 
 enabled to study school-classes in actual operation, to gain 
 an insight into their inner working, and to observe how those 
 who are in charge of such classes deal with the difficulties 
 which constantly arise in so many changing forms, and 
 before which he himself would probably have to retire 
 baffled and discouraged. 1 
 
 Now let us look at a very significant fact. They say that 
 " all roads lead to Rome " ; well, to-day, all the best thought, 
 all the finest effort that men are making 
 in education and in other spheres, too, 
 lead in the direction of the child, the young child. It is 
 for him that reforms are planned and carried into execu- 
 tion; it is for him that philanthropists, and even party- 
 politicians, show a solicitude unparalleled in the history of 
 the world. And it is to the child that the teacher (of any 
 subject whatever) has begun to see that he must direct his 
 most careful and earnest thought. Why, then, is it more 
 than ever important to get the best musical teaching for the 
 children ? For the simple reason that the teacher is dealing 
 with the most impressionable years of life, and that, if the 
 child's latent aural and rhythmic faculties are not wisely 
 and zealously cultivated at an early age, the difficulties in 
 the way of real musical perception increase in geometrical 
 progression as he passes through adolescence to adult life. 
 
 Now, I suspect that, long before this moment in our con- 
 sideration of the subject, the objection may have arisen: 
 
 1 I may say here that certain important schools are already provid- 
 ing such opportunities as I have been describing. 
 
8 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 " Oh, yes, this is all very well, and possibly it's true, but 
 people won't pay for good teaching in the early stages, and 
 declare with irritating persistence that anything is good 
 enough for a beginner ! " I know it, and I admit that 
 foolish and ignorant ideas take a great deal of exorcising; 
 there are many signs, though, of improvement even in this 
 direction. But, after all, even allowing for public ignorance 
 and indifference, it is the duty of musicians who believe 
 in their subject, to be "instant in season and out of season " 
 in presenting it in the right light, and to band themselves 
 together for mutual support and encouragement in so 
 doing. So it comes to pass that one of the outstanding 
 problems confronting us perhaps the one which is at the 
 root of everything else, and from which all other problems 
 spring is that of a serious consideration of the very simple 
 question I have already put, viz. : " Why does a child learn 
 music? " And, in connection with this, the most hopeful 
 of all the signs of improvement which we are witnessing 
 to-day is, to my thinking, the fact that we are at last becom- 
 ing aware of a new standard of values ; matters that used to 
 be accorded a consideration out of all relation to their real 
 importance are now being seen in a truer perspective, and 
 are yielding right of place to others that have hitherto suf- 
 fered a neglect as universal as it has been disastrous. 
 
 It is beginning to be realized that the study of music 
 involves much more than merely " learning to play," and 
 M . it is encouraging to note that in many 
 
 class-work schools, through the agency of rhythmic 
 
 movements in the Kindergarten stage, 
 followed by Ear-training and Appreciation classes in the 
 forms above, our children are now beginning to be brought 
 into communion with music as a language to be learned, and 
 a literature to be understood and enjoyed, and that their 
 whole nature is being sensitized to musical impressions in a 
 manner which must be seen and tested, to be believed by 
 those who only know what used to be in their own child- 
 hood's days. 
 
 Ruskin, many years ago, claimed to show how the elements 
 of drawing might be made a factor in general education. 
 What he claimed for his system was that it was " calculated 
 to teach refinement of perception, to train the eye to close 
 observation of natural beauties, to help pupils to understand 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 9 
 
 what masterly work meant, and to recognize it when they 
 saw it." 
 
 What has largely been the result of this? Simply that 
 drawing is now taught and studied in our schools, not in 
 order that pupils may take home " pretty pictures " duly 
 touched-up by the drawing-master for the admiration of 
 parents and friends, but just for that very purpose of training 
 the eye to perceive. Is not, I ask, the attitude of Ruskin 
 towards the teaching of drawing exactly what should be the 
 attitude of thinking musicians towards the teaching of their 
 own art ? It is desirable and necessary to train executants, 
 for many obvious reasons ; but it is of even greater impor- 
 tance to train the ear and mind to become perceptive, to foster 
 the habit of " close observation " of the beauties of music, 
 " to understand what masterly work means, and to recognize 
 it " when heard. 
 
 When as is possible in an increasing number of schools 
 to-day cognizance is taken of the entirely different attitude 
 assumed by the children towards music, as a result of the 
 newer methods of class-work, it will not be long before it 
 is realized that the bulk of them not only may be, but are, 
 keenly interested in music itself, and do listen to it and 
 study it with real appreciation. Moreover, . 
 it is incontestable that such children _ 
 
 . percepuon 
 
 receive through the medium of their 
 aural training classes such a foundation of real musical 
 perception that, when they come to their instrumental 
 studies (their piano, their violin or what not) they approach 
 them, not, as so often has been the case in the past, totally 
 unprepared to cope with the many and great difficulties 
 that lie in the path of all executive achievement, but with 
 their sense of rhythm and time already largely developed, 
 and their hearing faculties so quickened that the printed 
 notes do actually convey some musical meaning to their 
 minds. 
 
 I would, therefore, in all earnestness ask those responsible 
 for the curriculum in our schools seriously to consider 
 if they have not already done so a readjustment of musical 
 activities such as will afford every child the opportunity of 
 gaining those foundational musical experiences which are 
 his undoubted birthright. I do so with all the greater con- 
 fidence since it is an acknowledged fact that, when properly 
 
io THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 carried out, class-work in music (having for its object the 
 training of the ear and the development of the child's 
 appreciative powers) has most certainly the effect of stimu- 
 lating the mental faculties of those who take part in it, and, 
 as a result, of improving the standard of work in other depart- 
 ments. 1 The reason for this assertion may 
 Value of verv pertinently be asked, and it seems to 
 
 hi music me ^at a rea dy answer to the question is 
 
 to be found in the fact that we are here 
 dealing with a subject which is not on the one hand purely 
 intellectual, nor on the other hand merely emotional. The 
 drawing upon the imaginative side of the pupil's nature 
 a side often much neglected in education affords a relief 
 from the constant demands made upon the intellect by 
 other subjects, such as languages and mathematics, while 
 the powers of observation and of quick and accurate percep- 
 tion are called into play all along the line. In such an 
 institution, for example, as the well-conducted school 
 choral-class, we have an invaluable agency, not only in the 
 fostering of rhythmic, corporate action, but in the formation 
 of character. Its influence is in some degree comparable 
 to that of the playing-field in that, while personality counts, 
 it demands at the same time subordination to discipline in 
 the working out of a common purpose and a common ideal. 
 In this it is truly democratic, in the best sense of that much 
 used, and much abused, word. 
 
 I think it will be conceded, then, that if all this be the 
 case, the kind of class- work in music which many of us are 
 advocating in these days has claims to be considered an 
 educational subject of very real value in the all-round 
 development of our boys and girls; in the 
 the^tellkence ^ rst P^ ace > because in it there is a real call 
 upon the intelligence of the pupil, and 
 secondly, because it appeals, not only to one side of his 
 nature, but to many. Is it not true to say that it is largely 
 because people have realized so imperfectly that there is 
 this call upon the intelligence in all real listening that they 
 have been content to adopt the utterly passive, fish-like 
 
 1 In one particular school of which I have recently heard, the teachers 
 of other subjects are always anxious to have the children immediately 
 after their music-class, as they invariably find that they are then more 
 alert, responsive and alive. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 11 
 
 attitude which is so common in the presence of music? Is 
 it not because of their utter ignorance of the " logic " (if 
 one may so say, without being misunderstood) of the musical 
 art, that so many educated men think of it all as something 
 vague, intangible, fluid and lacking in intellectual fibre? 
 When, however, they are shown something of the purpose- 
 fulness of the achievements of the best writers, their sur- 
 prise is evident, and on many an occasion I have heard 
 such expressions as "Oh, I never thought there was all 
 that in it ; I wish something of this had been pointed out 
 to me when I was a boy, learning music ! " 
 
 Boys, particularly, are often afraid or intolerant of what 
 is popularly, but very inaccurately, described as " classical " 
 music. The terms Sonata, Symphony and the like are more 
 or less bugbears to them. Why? Is it not because 
 insufficient familiarity with such things breeds shyness? 
 Here, even the proverbial " little knowledge " would work 
 wonders, for once at any rate falsifying the old adage as 
 to its dangerousness, and the ranks of non-professional 
 music-lovers would be recruited to a far larger extent with 
 the right sort of material, more intelligent, more truly recep- 
 tive and possessed of some sort of foundation in experience 
 upon which to base their opinions and their judgments in 
 the time to come. 
 
 In the next place, we all acknowledge, in these days, that 
 the general elementary education of the child should form 
 a basis upon which the superstructure of 
 the special training necessary for his life- The educational 
 work (whatever that may be) may safely 
 be built. Now, it is perfectly obvious iif e - WO rk 
 that, apart from the bearing of music- 
 study upon the development of the general faculties, its 
 pursuit must be undertaken with the object of training 
 either 
 
 I. The amateur or music-lover (who obviously may not 
 be able to play more than the part of a listener). 
 II. The professional musician (who, we hope, is equally 
 a music-lover). 
 
 What, however, has not been sufficiently recognized, 
 and, as a consequence, has rarely been acted upon, is the 
 fact that the earliest stages of the child's work should be 
 
12 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 practically identical in both cases, and should prepare for 
 both these possibilities. In other words, what is taught 
 and learned in school days should lead naturally, and without 
 any " tearing up at the roots," towards whichever is event- 
 ually to be the end in prospect. The foundation must 
 be the same in both cases that is to say, the whole 
 nature of the child must be made as responsive to music as 
 possible, through the training of his hearing sense. We 
 have seen something of the effect, in after life, on the 
 amateur from the lack of this; how much more serious 
 does it not become in the case of one who eventually 
 purposes to follow the art of music as a career? Can 
 we say that the early musical education of the child has 
 invariably been such as to enable him to enter upon his 
 studies as a professional student of music (where that has 
 been his aim) with ear and mind prepared to benefit from 
 his special training? 
 
 There will be few to admit this amongst those whose duty 
 it has been, or is, to deal with such students, who not infre- 
 quently take up their work with their musico-mental faculties 
 singularly undeveloped. They have, perhaps, a fair degree 
 of executive skill with the voice, or upon an instrument, but 
 little else. Upon whom does the responsibility for this state 
 of things ultimately lie? Again, where is the remedy to be 
 found ? The answer to both these questions must be sought 
 for in the early stages of the student's musical life ; the tonal 
 and rhythmic sense is usually most keen and alert between 
 the ages of five or six and thirteen or fourteen in other 
 words, during school-age ; and if it is not cared for then, it is 
 extremely difficult (save in the case of specially gifted pupils) 
 to recover lost ground in later years. Now, as the cultiva- 
 tion of this sense need not involve an abnormal expenditure 
 of time, provided it is undertaken upon right lines, I plead 
 for an unprejudiced consideration of the matter in its 
 widest aspect by musicians and educationists alike. The 
 school is the place of all others where the art of music, 
 equally with other " humane " subjects, should be taught 
 on enlightened lines, and from a really educational stand- 
 point. If it is not thought worthy of this consideration, 
 I, personally, cannot see why it should occupy a place in 
 school-life at all; it were far better to delete it from the 
 list of school activities. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 13 
 
 But I feel most strongly that the school should be in a 
 very special sense the " nursery " of music, as of other de- 
 partments of education ; for here it should 
 have the best chance of being taught with 
 due and necessary reference to the other O f mus i c 
 branches of a liberal mental upbringing. 
 Too often, as we know, the possession of a special aptitude 
 for music has meant that the child's general education has 
 been grievously neglected. Even if its progress has not 
 been prematurely checked at a time when his intelligence 
 needs, above all things, a sane, all-round development, 
 it has been disastrously impaired by the foolish policy, 
 pursued by some parents, of compelling him to concentrate 
 all his young attention, will and brain-power exclusively 
 on the practising of some instrument. The wrong-head- 
 edness of this method of procedure should be obvious; 
 its grim results are to be found in countless cases of 
 arrested mental growth and the ultimate defeat of the very 
 objects primarily aimed at. 1 
 
 But if the schools as I have said are to be the " nurs- 
 eries " of music, as of other higher activities, it is clear that 
 they must attract, in increasing numbers, the right kind of 
 teachers. 
 
 School music-teaching has often had a bad name, and not 
 without reason. To-day things are, happily, improving 
 rapidly, and in our better-equipped schools (especially those 
 for girls) the musical curriculum is planned in a broad-minded 
 spirit and carried into execution in a manner wholly admi- 
 rable. But our schools, as a whole, will never be the power 
 they might be in matters musical, until they are able to attract 
 an army of teachers trained to deal with their subject as an 
 important item in the mental development of the child, 
 and capable of viewing it, as it should and must be viewed, 
 not as a thing in isolation, but in due relation to the supreme 
 question of that child's education in its totality. 
 
 My plea, therefore, at this stage is 
 
 I. That the heads of our schools will carefully weigh 
 - as many, I am happy to say, are doing to-day 
 
 1 Such persons invariably overlook the significant fact that, almost 
 without exception, the really great artists of to-day are men and women 
 of wide reading and liberal culture. 
 
14 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 the question of the value of music-study, and 
 consider the form in which it may best help 
 towards the total educational result of the child's 
 school years ; 
 
 II. That they will recognize it as one of the regular 
 subjects (as important in its own way as languages 
 or mathematics), and not regard it as an " extra," 
 tolerated as I have already said simply as 
 a more or less necessary evil in an imperf ect stage 
 of civilization ! 
 
 It is reasonable to expect that in many schools instru- 
 mental lessons must be more or less extra things ; I am, 
 however, not now talking of these, but of the general founda- 
 tional work in music to which most of my remarks have 
 referred. Next, it is of the first importance, to my think- 
 ing, that the music-teacher should be genuinely one of the 
 school staff, welcomed as a person who is doing valuable 
 work in the educational development of the child not 
 as a visitor whom the rest of the staff hardly know, even 
 by sight. The recognition of this, however, involves a 
 responsibility on the part of the music-teacher to take a 
 deeper interest than he usually has done in other branches 
 of work than his own and here much improvement is 
 needed. 
 
 Then, in view of the increased and increasing demands 
 on the music-teacher of to-day, comes the absolute necessity 
 of the managers of our schools making the terms upon which 
 such teachers are employed commensurate with those de- 
 mands. I am not going to set out upon the thorny path of 
 economics, but simply wish to state what is a reasonable 
 and righteous demand, based upon the irrefutable principle 
 that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." 
 
 Into the question of the organization of the school time- 
 table I will not enter here and now. I will merely reiterate 
 what a well-known headmistress said to me not long ago : 
 " Where there's a will there's a way ; once convince us that a 
 demand is right, and of real educational value, and it can be 
 managed somehow . ' ' And , what is more , this matter is being 
 managed in very many schools to-day in a way which would 
 have been declared impossible of realization only a few 
 years ago. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 15 
 
 We live in times of stress, but also, let me say, in times 
 of the greatest hope for musical education. This being 
 the case, the music-teacher, on his part, must 
 recognize that, while there is no room for 
 the " slacker," or for him who is disinclined 
 to move out of old grooves, there is more 
 and more scope for the fully equipped, well-educated, pro- 
 gressive teacher who has some kind of vision with regard 
 to his art, who sees in it a means by which he may help to 
 build up the mind and character of his pupil, and sow the 
 seeds of an appreciation of beauty and purity in his soul. 
 
 Educationists are now meeting the musician half-way; 
 it is for him to present his subject in such a manner as will 
 prove to those responsible for the educational curriculum 
 that music can contribute its share in the process of the 
 child's mental development, and to demonstrate that the 
 days are past and over when the teaching of our Divine art 
 could be associated in people's minds with young ladies' 
 seminaries and " Papa, potatoes, prunes and prisms." 
 
 The " accomplishment " of yesterday is going to be one 
 of the most valuable educational factors of to-morrow. 
 Great progress has already been made ; but there is much 
 land yet to be possessed. We hear much talk at prize 
 distributions, public dinners and the like of the human- 
 izing influence of music. I often wonder whether those 
 who use this expression really know what they mean, but 
 what is very clear to me is that the humanizing influence 
 of music is to be found in a different way from that of which 
 these worthy speakers dream. Music is a human activity, 
 and it is not to be approached in a spirit of mental idleness 
 as a soporific; it is not a species of vapor-bath, in which 
 our senses may wallow, but it is an art to be understood and 
 appreciated (i.e., valued) by the alert use of our mind and 
 the exercise of our intelligence. Let us see to it that the 
 foundations of this true appreciation are laid securely at 
 the time of all others when mind and heart are responsive 
 to pure and healthy impressions I mean in childhood. 
 
 Thus, and thus only, it seems to me, shall we be enabled 
 to create a more serious regard for the art of music as a force 
 in our national life, worthy of the exercise of the best of our 
 mental powers, and also a means by which those powers may 
 in turn be developed, strengthened and enriched. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 17 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 APPRECIATIVE MUSIC-STUDY; ITS MEANING 
 AND ITS VALUE 1 
 
 "It is probable that a ... sort of music- teaching 
 that would aim, not at instrumentalization, but 
 at intelligent appreciation, might find a place in a 
 complete educational scheme." 
 
 H. G. WELLS " Mankind in the Making " (1904) 
 
 "Every teacher who . . . finds a new channel 
 of access to the intelligence, the conscience, and 
 the sympathy of his scholars will do a service . . . 
 to the whole community." ^ JOSHUA 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR A COURSE OF CLASS-WORK IN 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 IN "Some Aims in Modern Musical Education," I tried to 
 show that the precise degree of importance attaching to the 
 study of music in the curriculum of our schools is, notwith- 
 standing considerable progress in this direction during the last 
 few years, still a matter concerning which much uncertainty 
 prevails, even amongst those who are immediately responsi- 
 ble for the formulation and administration of that cur- 
 riculum. On the one hand, there are those who can see in 
 music-study little more than the pursuit of a polite accom- 
 plishment, and regard its introduction into the school time- 
 table as an intrusion, as unwelcome as it is (in their opinion) 
 useless from an educational point of view. On the other 
 hand, there are those who feel that there is in such study a 
 real educative and moral value, but who nevertheless have 
 an uneasy suspicion that the form it usually takes does not 
 correspond in its results with their own ideas as to its worth. 
 
 1 Many of the ideas contained in this essay originally appeared, in 
 1910, under the title of "The Appreciative Aspect of Music-study." 
 
18 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 Amongst this latter class are to be found many headmasters 
 and headmistresses who it may be, more or less vaguely 
 realize that the study of music might be made much 
 more fruitful of good than it is; but who, either through 
 lack of specialized knowledge on their own part, or indif- 
 ference and apathy on the part of the parents of the children 
 under their care, have until now been unable to see their 
 way clearly enough to make any experiments in a new direc- 
 tion especially knowing that any such experiments might 
 not inconceivably be productive of opposition from the less 
 progressive members of their musical staff. 
 
 That we are on the eve of considerable changes in methods 
 of music-study as applied to the general run of our boys and 
 girls, is becoming increasingly evident to the careful observer. 
 That changes are desirable and even vital, if we wish for 
 progress, can no longer be doubted, and it is in the hope of 
 contributing from one's own experience something which may 
 be helpful to those who are seriously considering these newer 
 aspects of the subject that I have ventured to put the fol- 
 lowing thoughts together. 
 
 I think it will be admitted without cavil that it has taken 
 this country of ours many years to develop any sort of order 
 out of the chaos in which the general education of our young 
 people was for long involved. Latterly, however, we have 
 seen great strides in methods of teaching, in systematized 
 study, and even in popular interest in the training of the 
 young. 
 
 The improvement that has been steadily going on in 
 the general equipment of our boys and girls has been felt, 
 too, in the department of special studies, 
 
 f whi h mUsiC is ne * The u P ward trend 
 Muskstudy ^ things nas been for some time particu- 
 
 larly noticeable especially in composition 
 and piano-playing in our great schools of music ; and 
 I should like to say here that no one appreciates with more 
 honest admiration than I myself the great work that has, 
 during the last decade or so, been wrought out by a few 
 eminent piano-teachers who, by reducing the technique of 
 performance to a more or less exact science, have been able 
 not only to criticise and correct the faults of their pupils, 
 but in every case to give them a carefully reasoned and 
 scientific method of overcoming the difficulties, physical and 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 19 
 
 mental, that crowd upon the learner at certain stages of 
 his instrumental course. For those who have been in the 
 van of the crusade against technical slovenliness and in- 
 competence, no thanks are too great for having effected a 
 much-needed reform. 
 
 But, striking as all this remarkable executive achievement 
 is, the fact remains that, speaking broadly, the teaching art, 
 so far as music is concerned, has yet to be systematized, and 
 musical education coordinated with, and properly related 
 to, the child's other studies. 
 
 It is necessary, on the one hand, that the place of music 
 in his mental development should be more clearly recognized 
 and valued by those not specially concerned 
 with music-teaching; and, on the other Music-study 
 hand, that the music-teacher should have a 
 wider outlook, and realize that his or her 
 art is only one means out of many whereby 
 that child's nature is to expand and open out to the beauties 
 and wonders of the world in which it finds itself. 
 
 There, in these last words, it seems to me, lies the root 
 of the whole matter, namely, the " keeping ever alert the 
 faculty of wonder " in the child's soul. As a recent writer 
 has said : " To take life as a matter of course whether 
 painful or pleasurable that is a spiritual death, from which 
 it is the task of education to deliver us." x 
 
 Now, it is at least an open question whether the general 
 teaching and learning of music, as it has been usually under- 
 stood in the past, has ever had more than a somewhat remote 
 connection with such a thought as this. True it is that at 
 times a teacher, with the instinct of a real lover of his art, 
 will have been found to awaken that sense of delight in, and 
 wonder at, the beauties of music itself which should be the 
 heritage, not of the few, but of the many. But I think that 
 it may be accepted as a fact not easily controverted that, in 
 the huge majority of cases, the piano-lessons which our young 
 people have had to take week after week, and which alone 
 have represented " music " to them, have done little to 
 stimulate those faculties the arousing of which I have alluded 
 to above as the aim and end of true education. At the very 
 least, we may ask ourselves, does this special form of activity 
 stand out in after years in their thoughts as something which 
 1 "Let youth but know," by "Kappa." 
 
20 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 was, even in earliest days, a joy and a delight something 
 which drew them insensibly, perhaps, but none the less surely, 
 towards the Pure and the Beautiful ? 
 
 "All music-teachers acknowledge the difficulties they have to 
 contend with, thanks to our indiscriminate custom of setting nearly 
 
 every child to learn the violin or piano, regard- 
 Sterile Music- less of natural tendencies or physical disabilities. 
 teaching What do these children really learn about music ? 
 
 Many of them after four or five years of drudg- 
 ery acquire a limited repertory of pieces, forgotten almost as 
 soon as they are learned, the execution of which can, one imagines, 
 only give satisfaction to the most fond and unmusical parents. 
 This is no reflection upon their teachers, whose conscientious 
 efforts to make executants out of the most unpromising materials 
 involve a labor even more severe than that which is imposed upon 
 the children themselves." l 
 
 Agreeing as I do with every word of the above quotation, 
 I would yet give every boy and girl the opportunity of learn- 
 ing some instrument (the piano, for obvious reasons, being 
 of especial value, as being self-contained) ; and I would 
 encourage such instrumental study by every legitimate 
 means. But in a large body of young people it stands to 
 reason that there will be some whose interest will not 
 eventually lie in the overcoming of the many muscular 
 and other difficulties connected with the learning of an 
 instrument; that there will be others who are physically 
 unfit for the strain of the work ; others, again, whose fingers 
 are hopelessly incapable of achieving any sort of instru- 
 mental control. Moreover, the amount of time possible 
 for the necessary practice will, owing to the pressure of other 
 studies and of examinations, often be absurdly inadequate 
 for the attainment of anything like a passable degree of 
 executive skill. Are we, then, to cut off such pupils from 
 musical influences altogether? Surely not. Distaste or 
 inability in the matter of learning to play the piano is hardly 
 to be regarded as a proof either of an unmusical nature or 
 of a dislike for music ; on the contrary, such young people 
 are often naturally predisposed music- wards, and might 
 become interested and intelligent listeners, capable in time 
 of real, critical appreciation of the art in its highest forms. 
 In the case of literature, we should not go to the length 
 
 1 From a pamphlet on the educational value of the Pianola, by Sir 
 Henry J. Wood, the eminent conductor. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 21 
 
 of depriving them of good books if they were to prove them- 
 selves unable to recite, or unfit to write verses ; why, then, 
 starve them musically simply because from comparable 
 reasons they prove themselves unable to reproduce with 
 any degree of success the musical literature on the piano? 
 After all, in literary studies it is the literature itself which is 
 the important thing to bring the pupil into touch with ; it 
 matters comparatively little, so far as 
 appreciation goes, whether that pupil can 
 recite before an audience or not. So, s tudy 
 surely, in music, what we need is an appre- 
 ciative grip of the music itself, and I am convinced that we 
 shall never create a community of really intelligent listeners 
 capable of estimating with any degree of discrimination the 
 works with which they are brought into contact at concerts 
 and on other similar occasions, until we realize that their 
 training shall consist of something more than the abortive 
 struggles at the keyboard, which at present too often pass as 
 musical education in many schools and private families. 
 
 Again, for fear of being misunderstood, I wish to repeat 
 with emphasis that I do not undervalue good instrumental 
 teaching. Far from it ! For those who have the necessary 
 aptitude, the very fact of reproducing for themselves at the 
 instrument some, at least, of the music with which they 
 become familiar, is the greatest incentive to further progress ; 
 but it is most essential to remember that the constructive 
 or executive side of music-study is largely 
 distinct from the appreciative side, and Appreciative, 
 
 it is necessary to see that the true appre- as dis ^ nct from 
 
 . , . - . . . ,, ~ i executive, 
 
 ciation of music is not in the first place Music-study 
 
 dependent upon the amount of executive 
 skill acquired by the listener. This may conceivably be 
 almost nil, without impairing the critical faculty, provided 
 that from early days the student has been brought into 
 touch with what is best in our art, coupled with some sort 
 of sensible elucidation of its design and purport, imparted 
 by a teacher capable of dealing with this aspect of the 
 subject. An article written some time ago in the " Cruci- 
 ble" sums up the matter aptly in the following passage: 
 
 "Except in the most superficial way, our education of the pres- 
 ent day fails to impart that sort of training which is an essential 
 condition for any intelligent appreciation of the higher forms of 
 
22 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 music. A knowledge of musical form or design, of harmonic color- 
 ing, and of the outlines of musical history and development, is 
 just as vitally necessary for the rational enjoyment of music as 
 the perception of line and form and color for the appreciation of 
 a great picture. Yet, so long as we persist in teaching our boys 
 and girls to play, without giving them this essential education in 
 the vital facts of music, we are simply giving them a possibly use- 
 ful course of finger and hand gymnastics, with, in some cases, a 
 certain amount of emotional development ; but we are not training 
 them to become intelligent listeners, or enabling them to make in 
 their after life any extended acquaintance with that great litera- 
 ture of music which should be open to all." 
 
 It should be self-evident that the foundation of all real 
 progress in music-study lies in the training of the ear the 
 
 E trainin ear ^ ^ e c ^^' with its untold possibilities; 
 
 and yet it is just in this department that 
 the state of music-teaching, even to-day, is often so singu- 
 larly and lamentably deficient. Happily, since these words 
 were first written, in 1910, a very welcome degree of atten- 
 tion has been given to this subject of Aural training, and 
 among the many signs of a growing interest in matters 
 connected with the musical education of our girls and boys 
 none is likely to be productive of more important results. 
 This aspect of the main question has already formed the 
 basis of discussion at purely educational conferences; it 
 now boasts the possession of a considerable amount of 
 literature dealing with the many details connected with its 
 pursuit, and in short it has been raised in the space of 
 three or four years from the position of the utterly disregarded 
 fad of a few so-called " cranks " to that of a vital topic of 
 consideration amongst those whose business it is to deal with 
 the up-bringing of the rising generation. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the fact remains that in countless 
 schools little or nothing is as yet done in this direction, and, 
 although the eye is trained daily in many different ways, the 
 sensitiveness of the ear is allowed to remain undeveloped 
 and indeed uncared-for. Have we not, many of us, vivid 
 recollections of the way in which, at our own music-lessons, 
 our attention as children was called to notes (not sounds), 
 and our fingers were taught to make movements the sounds 
 produced by which we were never encouraged in any sense 
 to realize aurally, or to assimilate mentally? I find it 
 difficult to use language strong enough to express all that 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 23 
 
 I feel with regard to this woefully neglected subject of 
 ear-training. It would seem that it has taken people a very 
 long time to appreciate a fact in itself so obvious and even 
 axiomatic as this : that music reaches us through the ear, 
 and that it is the precise nature of the impression on the ear 
 which constitutes the sort of grasp we get of the music. 
 Moreover, the idea has prevailed that an " ear for music " 
 was purely a gift, and that if it were not in evidence at once 
 it was of no use to try to develop it ! Contact with a very 
 varied range of students from many parts of the world has 
 forced upon me the conclusion that (perhaps owing to the 
 idea I have mentioned above) little or nothing has as a rule 
 been done for the average girl or boy in the matter of the 
 cultivation of the ear during the period of greatest sensitive- 
 ness I mean, between the ages (roughly speaking) of six 
 and fourteen. 1 And seemingly, so little has this omission 
 been considered as a bar to musical progress, or even to the 
 following of the art as a career, that I have often, in response 
 to a question or two directed to this matter, received the 
 answer in a perfectly contented and even cheerful tone of 
 voice : " Oh, I must say that my ear is my weak point ! " 
 What would be thought of a student of painting saying with 
 equal nonchalance that his eye was his weak point ! As a con- 
 sequence of this defect in early training it too often happens 
 that those who have to deal with the more advanced and 
 intimate aspects of music-study, such as the teaching of Har- 
 mony, are constantly finding themselves up against that 
 " brick wall " of an unresponsive ear, which renders nugatory 
 nine-tenths of their efforts to make such study a real and vital 
 part of the development of the musical sense and sensibility. 
 The next point it is most necessary for us to recognize is 
 that, if in literary study as will surely be granted it is 
 with literature itself we wish our pupils to 
 become acquainted, so in musical study it 
 should in like manner be music itself with 
 which they should come into direct contact, presented to 
 them in such a way that its beauty and its worth may at 
 least have a chance of making an appeal to their sym- 
 pathies. It is often the case, as we all know, that the 
 
 1 Observation has shown that not more than two per cent of quite 
 young children are totally destitute of ear, but that the faculty of 
 distinguishing sounds and appreciating rhythmic detail rapidly dies 
 down, if not systematically trained. 
 
24 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 only music, of the right kind, our young people do get into 
 touch with, save in distinctly musical homes, is merely that 
 with which they themselves are struggling, in order to over- 
 come those very technical difficulties to which allusion has 
 been made. This frequently amounts to little more than 
 Czerny Studies and Clementi Sonatinas, with a few pieces 
 by Gurlitt or some other such composer to supply the more 
 recreative element in their work. 
 
 We should remember that a child of average intelligence 
 can take in and assimilate much more than he can reproduce, 
 and it is crushing to his musical understanding, and indeed 
 to his love of music at all, that he should be limited in his 
 range of serious musical impressions merely to the pieces 
 he can play himself. Fortunately, we do not nowadays 
 postpone introducing the child to the beautiful stories of 
 classical or modern days, as told by great authors, until he 
 can read them easily for himself. Should we not, therefore, 
 do something towards getting him into similar effective 
 communion with music not merely with what he is (to 
 quote the amusing expression of a well-known headmistress) 
 " contaminating with his own dirty little fingers," but with 
 music really well played and simply commented upon by a 
 cultured and enthusiastic teacher, who knows how to 
 approach the youthful mind in such a way as to make it 
 respond both to the music and to the few words of sym- 
 pathetic explanation? Feeling all this very strongly, I 
 have for some time past pleaded for the formation partic- 
 ularly in our schools of Musical Appreciation classes, 
 in which the teacher shall so play to the pupils, giving them 
 at the same time help in the recognition of the character 
 and purport of the music, and in the following of the com- 
 poser's design, in order that the power of assimilating that 
 music at any rate, in some degree in a conscious and 
 reasonable way may gradually be developed, and the founda- 
 tions of intelligent listening laid with some sort of security. 
 
 In the earliest stages, where a class consisted of quite 
 young children of Kindergarten age, the music would, of 
 course, be of an entirely recreative nature 
 
 ( such as merr y nurser y tunes > and the 
 like) and the aim should merely be the 
 
 awakening of the child's imagination and of his rhythmic 
 sense by means of an attractive musical stimulus, to which 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 25 
 
 he should be allowed to give himself up in unrestrained 
 enjoyment. By degrees, however, he should begin to realize 
 such fundamental matters as regularity of pulse, the " trend 
 of the phrase," and the periodical recurrence of musical 
 ideas. Afterwards comes the more intellectual process of 
 knowing what happens ; he becomes acquainted with dif- 
 ferences of pitch and of time, always by means of observing 
 what takes place in the music to which he listens ; he learns 
 gradually how such things are expressed in notation, and 
 a matter of great importance his own creative powers 
 are aroused and encouraged, not with the object of breed- 
 ing a race of composers which would be as absurd as it 
 would be beside the mark but in order that the power to 
 originate, however feebly, may be developed in him, and so 
 afford him another and most valuable means of self-expres- 
 sion. When the ear is thus trained to observe and to appre- 
 hend at an early age, the possibilities of development along 
 these lines are almost endless that is, in the case of chil- 
 dren of average intelligence, possessing no obvious physical 
 disability with regard to their hearing sense. 1 
 
 Where, however, the child's ear has been neglected, and 
 he reaches fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years of age without 
 any attention having been paid to its cultivation, it is not 
 to be wondered at that, in most instances, whatever sensi- 
 tiveness of aural perception there may have been originally, 
 becomes dulled, and the teacher cannot hope to accomplish 
 so much as in the case of the children we 
 have been considering. But even here Appreciative 
 ... . ^ . study and the 
 
 Appreciative music-study steps in to pro- neg ie c ted 
 
 vide the means by which the spark of ear 
 interest in the art, however feeble it may 
 seem to be, may be fanned into a flame of real enthusiasm 
 by a zealous and capable teacher. It is clear that a train- 
 ing in the appreciation of the finer and more " delicate 
 impressions and distinctions," possible when the ear has been 
 cared for systematically from early childhood, will have to 
 give way to a broader and less minute study of the more out- 
 standing and striking features of the music ; but along such 
 lines there is endless scope. 
 
 Is no attempt, then, to be made to awaken the dormant 
 faculties of such pupils as those to whom we are now referring, 
 1 Reference should here be made to the footnote on page 23. 
 
26 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 and to encourage some response in their minds and hearts 
 to the beauties which lie locked away in that treasure-house, 
 whose key has, perchance, never yet been found? Surely 
 something may be done ; something can and should be done. 
 
 Suggestions for School Class-work 
 
 In offering a suggested course of class-work, I am fully 
 aware that conditions vary in different schools; and, as a 
 consequence of this, the following scheme must be regarded 
 as indicating the main principles to be aimed at and carried 
 out in sound music-teaching, rather than as constituting any 
 hard-and-fast system to be adhered to without reference to 
 local requirements. 
 
 When " The Appreciative Aspect of Music-study " first 
 appeared five years ago, I based the scheme upon a recog- 
 nition of three main factors of importance (other than good 
 instrumental teaching, with which the articles were not 
 immediately concerned) in any kind of successful musical 
 education of the mass of our young people. These factors 
 were : 
 
 I. Singing at sight 1 Combined in the work of 
 
 II. Systematic ear-training j a Singing-class. 
 III. Opportunities for listen- i.e., work in an " Appre- 
 ing to music, ciation " class. 
 
 Since then, further experience and consideration of the 
 matter have led me to the belief that, although in some 
 instances the above arrangement of class-work might 
 advantageously be followed, a better, and on the whole more 
 practical, division of the different branches of study is to be 
 found in the scheme which follows. This assumes two types 
 of class for general music-study, carefully graded throughout 
 the school according to the age and ability of the pupils : 
 
 I. The Aural-training Class : for the definite training 
 of the hearing sense (by means of Sight-singing, 
 Musical Dictation, Melody-construction, etc.), 
 and the provision of regular opportunities for 
 hearing good music. 
 
 II. The Choral Class : for the practice of correct breath- 
 ing and other points of voice-production, and for 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 27 
 
 the study of the many unison, two-part and three- 
 part songs available for school use. (Regular 
 practice hi Sight-singing should also form part of 
 the work of this class.) 
 
 With regard to the question of the practicability of estab- 
 lishing such classes in the average school, 1 it is often urged 
 that the time-table will not admit of any considerable 
 extension of the time allotted to music. It should, however, 
 be recognized that what is really needed in most cases is less 
 in the nature of an increase than of a redistribution of the 
 time given to existing activities. Most schools possess a 
 Singing-class, and very many also a " Theory " class. The 
 time already devoted to these may, and can, well be utilized 
 for the more systematic and effective cultivation of the 
 pupil's musical perception. The so-called " Theory " class 
 is, as a rule, occupied with little more than questions of 
 notation, too often divorced from the child's actual musical 
 experiences, and a change of method here on right lines 
 should result in the class ceasing to be one in which mere 
 symbols are learned and memorized, and becoming one in 
 which such symbols take their rightful place with regard 
 to the musical facts they represent. 
 
 The time allotted to each of the classes (I) and (II) might 
 vary, according to school arrangements, from thirty to sixty 
 minutes per week. In many large Higlvschools the time 
 now being devoted to each class is forty minutes per week, 
 and this basis of time may be regarded as generally satis- 
 factory. In the case of the lowest forms, shorter and more 
 frequent lessons are infinitely more valuable, and it is 
 recommended that, in the case of quite young children, brief 
 daily lessons, of not more than fifteen minutes, should be 
 the rule. From the very fact, already alluded to, that 
 conditions vary so widely in different schools, it is hardly 
 practicable to set forth in detail the various stages into which 
 the work to be accomplished by the two types of class now 
 under consideration should be divided. Such division must 
 necessarily depend largely upon the size of the school and the 
 ages of the pupils. In the case of the Choral class it is, save 
 
 1 1 am here considering the matter from the standpoint of girls' 
 schools. A somewhat differently constituted scheme would be neces- 
 sary in the case of those for boys. 
 
28 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 in very large schools, usually sufficient to arrange the pupils 
 in three grades: Junior, Middle and Senior, the youngest 
 children those of Kindergarten age being excluded in 
 the above distribution, for reasons set forth below. It is 
 better, on the other hand, that the Aural-training classes 
 should be graded more minutely, containing, if possible, 
 not more than about fifteen pupils, in order that the teacher 
 may give attention to each member of the class as occasion 
 demands a matter that is not so pressing in the case of 
 work on the choral side. 
 
 (a) Outline of Work in the Aural-training Classes 
 
 Kindergarten Stage. At this stage the aural-training 
 should take the form of 
 
 I. Rhythmic bodily movements, and 
 n. Singing by rote of simple nursery-tunes and national 
 songs, no attempt, as yet, being made in the direc- 
 tion of reading the music, either from the Staff, 
 or from Sol-fa. 
 
 The work should be quite untechnical, and should simply 
 have as its object the " laying up in the children's minds 
 of a store of [pure and healthy] experiences to which the 
 teacher may appeal when the more formal systematic study 
 of music commenees." l 
 
 The Rhythmic movements should at first be entirely free, 
 the spontaneous response of the children by running, skip- 
 ping and dancing, 2 to the strong rhythms and marked char- 
 acter of the simple music played or sung to them. As Miss 
 Marie Salt well says, in her interesting " Music and the 
 Young Child": 3 
 
 " The child's nervous system is responsive to sound and rhythm 
 at a very early age, and his normal and healthy development 
 requires it, as it does exercise, language, and toy -play. Musical 
 education begins in the cradle with the lullaby and nursery -song of 
 the mother. This indirect training must be continued in the school 
 
 1 Mrs. J. Spencer Curwen. "The Child Pianist." 
 
 2 Not dancing, I need hardly say, in which the movements are 
 taught. They must be the child's own natural response to the music. 
 
 "Music and the Young Child." Appendix to Part I. of "Aural 
 Culture based upon Musical Appreciation," by Stewart Macpherson and 
 Ernest Read. (The Boston Music Co.) 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 29 
 
 still indirect in character in the Kindergarten and infant school, 
 though gradually preparing for the more intellectual as well as the 
 more purely emotional enjoyment of a later stage." 
 
 As the children progress, and the ideas of pulse, accent, 
 time and phrase-rhythm are brought to their notice, the use 
 of instruments of percussion drums, triangles, cymbals 
 and tambourines is most helpful. 
 
 The more definite mental realization of the various kinds 
 of time and of the divisions of the pulse may also be assisted 
 in a marked manner by bodily movements at this early point 
 in the pupil's work. Later on, in the adolescent stage, it 
 seems to me that it is wiser to discontinue the use of such 
 movements at any rate, in normal cases; but with the 
 young child they are of considerable educational value, as 
 they harness his natural excess of motor-activity to the 
 teacher's own ends. 
 
 Lower and Middle Forms. During the period succeeding 
 that of the Kindergarten, between the ages, approximately, 
 of seven and fifteen years, the more intellectual aspects of 
 aural training will, of necessity, claim a larger share of atten- 
 tion. The pupils should then make acquaintance with 
 the element of tonality (or the relationships of sounds within 
 the key), by means at first of the Movable-Do, or the 
 Tonic Sol-fa syllables, passing on in due sequence to the men- 
 tal realization of the various keys, and their relationship 
 one to the other. In this way, that power of mentally 
 hearing the sounds indicated by the printed or written signs is 
 acquired , which in itself is one of the first steps towards any 
 real musical progress. 1 In the course of this work singing at 
 sight and musical dictation play an important part, and both 
 of these activities, even apart from their musical importance, 
 are of the highest value in the development of mental con- 
 centration, an even momentary lapse of attention being fatal 
 to success. Eye, ear and mind are here called upon to act 
 in concert, and I know of nothing which tends to cultivate 
 quickness of decision and accuracy of thought better than 
 systematic practice in both these aspects of ear-training. 
 
 Side by side with the realization of pitch and key should 
 go the grasping of the more complex phases of time, rhythm, 
 
 x The poor results so often achieved in instrumental work are due, 
 in nine cases out of ten, simply to the lack of this mental correlation of 
 sound with symbol. 
 
30 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 and the elements of musical shape or form, the aural study 
 of intervals, the recognition by ear of the simpler harmonies 
 of the key, and that awakening of the creative instinct in 
 the pupil to which allusion has already been made. But 
 it is necessary that all this work, instead of being divorced 
 from musical experiences (as has so often been the case in the 
 old " Theory " classes), should be actually based upon real, 
 living music with which the pupil is first brought into sym- 
 pathetic contact, and afterwards " re-sees " in the light of 
 increased knowledge and growing aural perception. 
 
 While the more technical details of the subject l are being 
 brought to his notice in such a way that they are no mere 
 items of " useful musical knowledge," but a real development 
 of his hearing powers, the more aesthetic side of " Apprecia- 
 tive " study should be cared for regularly by the teacher. 
 The class then should become, from time to time, what may 
 be described as a genuine " Musical Appreciation class," in 
 which as I have suggested earlier in these remarks the 
 teacher should play some attractive musical composition, 
 for the purpose of studying its broader outlines with his 
 pupils, and of encouraging an appreciation of its character, 
 its plan and its many features of interest. 2 
 
 With the youngest forms (as was stated on page 24), the 
 aim should be to make these classes supply the more recrea- 
 tive element, and to stimulate the imagination. Later on, the 
 pupils should be made to realize that a more insistent call 
 upon their faculties of observation is a natural and legitimate 
 demand of their study. By means of the Appreciation 
 class the pupils may gradually be brought into close com- 
 munion with much beautiful and worthy music which other- 
 wise would be a sealed book to them until such time as they 
 should be able to laboriously decipher it for themselves 
 at the keyboard. At the same time they gradually become 
 aware of the artistic application of much of the more technical 
 
 1 Although no specific mention has been made of what is usually 
 known as "Elements of Music," but which would be better termed 
 "Elements of Musical Notation," it is, of course, assumed that such 
 purely notational matters as Time-signatures, Key-signatures, abbrevi- 
 ations, ornaments, etc., would be introduced in their necessary connec- 
 tion both with the class- work and with the instrumental lessons. 
 
 2 In undertaking such work, the teacher should seek to implant in 
 the pupils' minds the sense of personal relationship towards the great 
 masters, so that they may realize however vaguely at first that 
 music, in actual fact, is human expression, one of the many channels 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 31 
 
 side of their musical education, which, by this means, is seen 
 in its proper focus. 
 
 Upper Forms. Where the aural training of the pupils 
 has been cared for systematically throughout their earlier 
 years, the work in these forms, besides including the more 
 advanced aspects of pitch, time, rhythm and construction, 
 should deal with the elements of keyboard and written 
 Harmony always upon a distinctly aural basis. The kind 
 of constructive work in Harmony so often carried out in 
 school, in which little or no appeal is made to the ear, and 
 which results merely in the " architectural " piling-up of 
 chords on a figured-bass chords of whose sound the pupil 
 is frequently in complete and blissful ignorance is abso- 
 lutely valueless from a musical point of view. 
 
 On the " Appreciation " side a stage should have been 
 reached at which the Sonatas, Symphonies, etc., of the great 
 masters could profitably be studied, and the pupils should be 
 in a fit condition to benefit from good chamber or orchestral 
 concerts, and also from lectures by specialists on the great 
 masterpieces, particularly in view of such concerts. 
 
 i 
 (b) Work in the Choral Classes 
 
 Junior Division. This class should be planned so as to 
 include most of the youngest children above Kindergarten 
 age, and in it the aim should be to teach them (a) to breathe 
 properly, a point of great importance, not only musically, 
 as the foundation of pure vocal tone, but physically; (b) to 
 sing sweetly and with simple, unaffected expression and clear 
 enunciation, the many unison songs available for school use, 
 such as the folk-songs of all countries, and certain selected 
 songs. 
 
 Middle Division. The work here should include, as in 
 the Junior Division, breathing exercises and exercises for 
 
 through which the thoughts of men are communicated to the world. 
 Here, the judicious use of biographical and historical details would have 
 to be considered. It would be sufficient, in the majority of cases, 
 for the teacher merely to sketch in a few brief and simple words the 
 surroundings of the composer whose music might be the subject of 
 study, and the conditions under which he lived and worked; by so 
 doing he would help very materially in placing his pupils in an attitude 
 of sympathy towards the music itself. But, as stated in Part II 
 of "Aural Culture based upon Musical Appreciation," "in no case 
 should the teacher yield to the temptation to allow mere ' story-telling ' 
 to usurp the time that should be devoted to a study of the music." 
 
32 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 gaining control and flexibility of the vocal organs. The 
 material for practice and performance might well include, in 
 addition to unison songs, Rounds for equal voices, and other 
 pieces in which the voices are divided into first and second 
 trebles (or trebles and altos) . In making this division of the 
 class, great care should be taken not to strain voices naturally 
 lower in pitch, by making them sing higher than they can 
 with perfect ease. The teacher should also exercise great 
 discretion in the choice of music, and should see to it that 
 only compositions of a high standard of artistic merit are used 
 in the class. 
 
 In all the classes, careful attention should be given not 
 only to pure production of the voices, but to those matters of 
 phrasing and expression which are the basis of artistic per- 
 formance. 
 
 Senior Division. In this division, in addition to work 
 of a similar character to that undertaken in the Middle 
 Division of the school, it might be found possible to reach a 
 standard of execution sufficient for the study of a short 
 Cantata for equal voices. In large classes, moreover, three- 
 part songs might be practised with advantage, but it need 
 hardly be said that the feasibility of this would depend largely 
 upon the downward compass of the voices to which was 
 entrusted the lowest (or Alto) part. The teacher should be 
 most careful to avoid strain at either end of the voice. 
 
 Some sight-singing should be done regularly in all the 
 Singing-classes, aiid to the end that this may be carried out 
 without conflict of idea and method, and in order to avoid 
 overlapping, the Singing-class teacher should be in close and 
 constant touch with the teacher of the Aural training classes. 1 
 
 I need hardly say that, throughout the whole school- 
 period, it is of the first importance that the class-work, 
 whether in Aural training or in Choral-singing, should be 
 properly correlated with the instrumental lessons that the 
 various pupils might be taking ; consequently it is, as I have 
 stated above, vitally necessary that the several teachers 
 engaged in dealing with musical subjects in the school should 
 have constant opportunities of comparing notes, and so of 
 acting in concert. Frequently, it must be confessed, such 
 teachers carry out their duties in complete ignorance of all 
 
 1 Obviously, in many smaller schools the two sides of the work might 
 be undertaken by one and the same teacher. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 33 
 
 that is going on outside their own special departments, to 
 the serious and often irretrievable detriment of the work as a 
 whole. 
 
 Concluding Remarks 
 
 Such, in rough outline, is a plan of work, the adoption of 
 which would, in my opinion, tend to awaken a real, living 
 interest in music itself, among our young people, and go 
 far towards creating more discriminating and intelligent 
 audiences in the future. I realize that it is not an easy task to 
 carry out heroic measures of reform. That there will be prej- 
 udices to be overcome, apathy to be combated, even hostility 
 to be met, one knows only too well. Quite recently, an 
 eminent educationist, who is wholly in sympathy with the 
 ideas set forth in this article, told me of an admirable young 
 teacher who, when found by her superior mistress playing to 
 her pupils and giving them some sort of intelligent insight into 
 the features of the compositions they were studying, was told 
 that she was " wasting time," that the pupils were to play and 
 she to listen, and that if she did that sort of thing again she 
 would be dismissed ! The old idea, that the only thing which 
 matters is that music-pupils must learn so many pieces per 
 term, to show off before admiring relatives and friends, still 
 holds sway, unfortunately, in far too many instances, and 
 difficulty and opposition will doubtless be met with by those 
 who desire to carry out really educative principles in the 
 musical curriculum. 
 
 I know, too, that much will need to be done before many 
 parents will look with sufficient seriousness upon the aspects of 
 musical education which we have been considering, and the 
 advertisement of the enterprising local teacher who guaran- 
 teed " thirty cheerful tunes " at the end of a term, is still, in 
 principle, the index of what is too often required and de- 
 manded ! 
 
 On the other hand, that some such scheme of work as I 
 have adumbrated should meet with the sympathy of those 
 interested in the training of the young, would be, I think, a 
 matter upon which one should be able to count ; since, after 
 all, such a scheme only means the application to music of 
 methods already applied successfully to other branches of 
 education. And I would like to impress upon those respon- 
 sible for the curriculum in our schools that the kind of study 
 
34 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 which has been outlined in this article does not only concern 
 the professional student ; it is a necessity for all, if we would 
 make music worthy as indeed it is of an acknowledged 
 place in modern education, instead of being relegated to the 
 position of a mere amiable pastime, the time devoted to which 
 is grudged and, as things are at present, more or less 
 naturally grudged as entailing a diverting of attention 
 from subjects of apparently greater value. 
 
 Educationists are beginning to see that the " appreciative " 
 side of music-study affords a basis for cultivating the child's 
 power of observation, which in many ways can hardly be 
 surpassed ; and even if the matter ended there, my plea for 
 this kind of training would have established its claim to con- 
 sideration. But that is by no means all ; I am convinced 
 that along some such lines lies the one chance of arousing the 
 latent musical faculties of the majority of our young people, 
 of giving them a real insight into the subtler aesthetic and 
 intellectual beauties of the art, and of cultivating a true 
 interest in music qud music amongst the great bulk of 
 the community, where, as I have remarked in another place, 
 I feel " there exists a vast mass of musical intelligence which 
 only needs a stimulus in the right direction for it to become 
 a most valuable and powerful factor in the musical life of 
 the nation." 1 
 
 1 "Music and its Appreciation, or the Foundations of True Listen- 
 ing," by Stewart Macpherson. (London : Joseph Williams, Ltd.) 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 35 
 
 II 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF AN INTELLIGENT APPRECIATION 
 OF MUSIC; THE TEACHER'S PART 
 
 I HAVE already endeavored to show the value, in any 
 sound scheme of musical education, of " appreciative " 
 teaching, and to indicate how by its means the child's powers 
 of observation may be rapidly and surely cultivated, and 
 an intelligent response to the beauties of music awakened, 
 even in the case of many who otherwise would be left to fall 
 back for their musical impressions upon their own feeble 
 struggles against heavy odds in the hours of piano-practice. 
 Having regard to the ever-increasing technical difficulty 
 and complexity of modern music, it should be obvious 
 that it is only the comparatively few who will ever be 
 able to cope with the more important instrumental 
 works at any rate, to play them effectively and well. 
 
 Dr. Lyttelton, the Headmaster of Eton, not long ago said 
 most truly that " the main point to be emphasized at present 
 is that ordinary musical education means training children 
 to become good listeners." Precisely; and by making this 
 thought the underlying motive of our teaching, we should 
 be giving those same children a possession for life of the 
 highest possible value, and be doing something at least for 
 the improvement of the general standard of discernment and 
 critical judgment, which at present is so often based upon a 
 flimsy and worthless foundation. In a book on the education 
 of a music-lover, published in America a year or two ago, 
 its author, Mr. W. H. Dickinson, says : 
 
 " It does not seem to me to require argument to prove that the 
 dissemination of good taste in art is an obligation upon college 
 and school. If such argument is needed, there is no better summary 
 than that of President Frederick Burk, of the San Francisco State 
 Normal School. 'The world,' he says, 'uses vocations as a means 
 
36 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 of bread-winning, but the world also uses music, art, literature, 
 the drama just as intensely, just as essentially, just as relevantly. 
 Because the world uses religion, art, music, the drama, civic ideals, 
 etc., these are as legitimate and important goals of education as 
 bread- winning. '" 
 
 It must be patent to all of us, if we give the matter a mo- 
 ment's thought, that the faculty of hearing, of listening, so 
 
 as really to make sense of what we hear, is 
 Need for the one faat requires steady and regular cultiva- 
 tiie^he^ng t * on> Fon( lness for music or rather, the 
 
 sense experience of a certain sense of pleasure in 
 
 hearing it is not of necessity a proof of 
 judgment or true appreciation, or even of the possession of 
 the qualifications for true listening. It is a necessary pre- 
 liminary condition ; but no more. The intelligent appre- 
 hending of music requires much that goes far beyond this ; 
 it requires, as we have seen, the healthy development of 
 the hearing sense, that sense which too often is allowed to 
 lie dormant, untrained and undeveloped save in the case of 
 the exceptional few, during the most sensitive years of life 
 that is to say, during the years of childhood. 
 
 It is true, I think, that the majority of the community 
 regard the act of listening to music as something at once 
 simple, obvious and familiar, and that the idea of any prep- 
 aration for such listening comes home to them with a feeling 
 even of strangeness and of novelty. But it should be 
 clearly borne in mind that the sensitiveness of ear which 
 is necessary for the true perception and realization of music 
 must by no means be confused with the physical sensa- 
 tion which certain classes of composition produce with 
 tolerable ease in the case of many even totally uncultured 
 persons uncultured, I mean, so far as the art of music 
 is concerned. "It is not by any means an infallible proof 
 of a really musical organization, or of a power of appre- 
 hending music, that we should find such a piece as the ' Ride 
 of the Valkyries,' or Tschaikowski's ' 1812 ' overture setting 
 up a certain kind of excitement in our nervous system, or 
 that we should find ourselves instinctively beating time to the 
 easily-recognized rhythm of some (perhaps perfectly artistic) 
 dance-measure." 1 
 
 1 "Music and its Appreciation/' page 2. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 37 
 
 If music is to become a pursuit or a recreation worthy 
 of the serious attention of the more cultured minds among 
 us, the art of listening must consist of much more than this ; 
 it must connote the power of following more or less completely 
 the unfolding of the composer's plan, of observing and 
 remembering his main ideas so that their subsequent develop- 
 ment may become a source of delight to us, of taking note of 
 the various shades of instrumental coloring, and by no 
 means least it must include the ability to 
 recognize the relationships of pitch suffi- 
 ciently well so as to be able, in some measure listening 
 at any rate, mentally to see both the melody 
 and the harmony of the music to which we are giving our 
 attention. Some may be tempted to object to much of 
 what I have said not, perhaps, in theory, but so far as 
 it relates in practice to the bulk of the " body politic," that 
 vast army constituting the staple of our concert-room audi- 
 ences, and to reply to me that such persons can never be 
 expected to do more than a fraction of what I have just been 
 setting forth as necessary to true listening. 
 
 That very few amateurs, and not all professional musi- 
 cians, are able so to use their ears is hardly open to question ; 
 but that it is an impossibility, given certain preliminary 
 conditions, I most emphatically deny, from experience gained 
 at first hand over a fairly large area of operations. 
 
 A recent article in The Times on " The habit of listening," 
 says: 
 
 "There is no doubt whatever that many of us, simply through 
 lack of the habit of listening, fail to hear more than a portion 
 sometimes an extremely small portion of a composer's thoughts. 
 . . . The natural man can only produce one note at a time of 
 his natural instrument, his voice ; and it is only very gradually 
 that he attains to the power of distinguishing readily and clearly, 
 the acoustically less prominent elements in simultaneous sounds. 
 Much, no doubt, may be hoped from the newer educational methods 
 which are little by little winning their way into schools ; we are 
 coming to see that appreciation is more valuable than perform- 
 ance." 
 
 If it is permissible to venture upon an analogy which, 
 though not entirely exact at all points, is sufficiently so for the 
 present purpose, one might say that the position of the 
 average listener in the presence of music is in a very real sense 
 that of the playgoer who witnesses a play in a foreign language 
 
38 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 with which he is either totally or in part unacquainted. 
 Such an one does, it is true, gain a vague, general impression 
 of the meaning and purport of the play from the gestures of 
 the actors, and the varying tones of their voices ; but of the 
 expressiveness and the power of the language used by them 
 he knows practically nothing. For him charm of phrase 
 and appropriateness of diction bring no thrill of delight, and 
 awaken no answering echo of admiration. So with music : 
 " in the case of the many who throng our concert-rooms, we 
 shall not be very wide of the mark in saying that what they 
 hear reaches them in a somewhat similar way; the music 
 comes to them purely as a physical sensation. A kind of 
 general impression is produced, which presumably affords 
 them a certain degree of pleasure ; but it is quite incontest- 
 able that (just as in the case of the play in a foreign tongue) 
 the pure unalloyed delight in the composer's art, arising from 
 an appreciation of the actual language he uses, and of the 
 development and interplay of his ideas, is something outside 
 the experience of such hearers." l 
 
 For, after all, the listening to a serious musical work, so as 
 to make sense of it, is a much more exacting matter than most 
 people are disposed to think. We can stand 
 True listening before a picture or a statue as long as we 
 needs concen- -., -, f , . ., , ., ., 1 ^ ., 1 G , . , 
 
 trated attention llke > an( * take m detail after detail, by which 
 means our impression of it all becomes more 
 definite. But music passes us by in a flash; it has to be 
 conditioned by time ; no sooner is one series of impressions 
 partly imprinted on our mind than it has to make way for 
 another, and that for another, and so on ; and we often come 
 away, particularly after a first hearing, with only a clouded 
 idea of what it has all been about. If that is to some extent 
 the case with even the trained ear, what must the result 
 be upon the ear which is deaf to the very idioms of the 
 language to which it is listening ? 
 
 Now, supposing it is granted that much of what I have said 
 is true, it may very reasonably be asked what one has to 
 suggest as a means of improving this condition of things. 
 Some words of a valued colleague at the Royal Academy of 
 Music 2 will indicate the direction in which we should look for 
 such improvement. He says : 
 
 "Music and its Appreciation," page 2. 
 2 Dr. H. W. Richards, in the R.A.M. Club Magazine, January, 1909. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 39 
 
 "It is self-evident that special attention should be directed to 
 the child and its musical surroundings. We reap as a rule what 
 we sow, and how can we hope to gather a rich j^ e Q^^ an( j 
 harvest in any department of life where the seed- - tg musica i 
 time has been overlooked ? The early impressions surroundings 
 that can be made on a child are so important 
 that they claim more than the scanty notice which too often they 
 receive." 
 
 After showing how so elementary a fact as this has been 
 very long in being grasped by those who have dealt with 
 musical education, and referring to the " horrible hours, 
 often alone in a cold room, spent in practising five-finger 
 exercises and scales, a dreary penance going by the name 
 of ' doing our music,' " the same writer goes on to say : 
 
 "The gradual awakening of a child's intelligence, and early 
 culture on right lines, will make music perhaps one of the chief 
 pleasures of its existence, and soak into its very being. . . . 
 Its mind must during these early years be awakened to the beauty 
 of good music, so that it will, as it were, breathe the best air from 
 its earliest days, and the foundation of its knowledge be so soundly 
 planned and laid that no early method will need to be corrected 
 and no lesson unlearned." 
 
 I would echo these words with my whole heart, and say 
 again and again, " Begin with the child, who is the father 
 of the man " ; there lies the one chance, the one great hope of 
 reaching all that some of us are ardently striving for. Thus, 
 as I said before, we find ourselves face to face with the neces- 
 sity of doing something towards getting our pupils, during 
 their sensitive early years, into real and effective communion 
 with music music well played and sympathetically ex- 
 plained by a cultured and enthusiastic teacher. 
 
 Now as to the qualifications necessary for the teacher 
 who seeks to undertake this most interesting and hopeful 
 kind of work. First, it is clear that he must 
 be a musical enthusiast, one who delights in ^redative "^ 
 music himself, and is desirous of passing on teaching 
 that delight and enthusiasm to others. 
 Secondly, he must love his teaching, and not look upon it 
 as a sort of penance, to be endured simply for the sake of 
 its monetary reward. " The interest in the extension of 
 musical appreciation," says Mr. Dickinson again, " once 
 taking root as a conviction, becomes an enthusiasm. . . . 
 Nowhere is it more beautifully manifested than among 
 
40 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 the noble group of obscure private teachers, who, at stated 
 times, gather their little company of pupils and talk to them 
 on the deeper things of their art. This is indeed a service 
 that ' blesseth him that gives and him that takes.' . . . 
 When music is felt by one of its votaries to be a source of 
 unalloyed happiness and purification of spirit he is fired 
 with something like a missionary zeal." Thirdly, the 
 teacher must be a musician of good all-round knowledge 
 not merely a pianist, or singer, or violinist but a musician 
 in the best and widest sense of the term. 
 
 For it is clear that, in dealing with Musical Appreciation 
 work, such subjects as Form, Harmony and Musical History 
 must be more or less " at his fingers ' ends," otherwise his 
 chances of interesting his class will be small. Moreover, he 
 must have a tolerably extensive acquaintance with the works 
 of the great masters, and must know them well enough to 
 quote aptly from time to time. The pieces he plays to his 
 class must be well played, and most teachers of any ability at 
 all should be able to play all the illustrations required for at 
 least the more elementary stages, as these would not require 
 excessive technical attainments. On the other hand, some 
 little difficulty might very naturally be experienced by many 
 teachers where a more advanced grade of work necessitated 
 examples of compositions requiring a command of the key- 
 board which they could not reach, with the very limited 
 time at their disposal for their own practice. Where such 
 happened to be the case, the teacher would in my opinion 
 find a most helpful auxiliary in one of the many " Play- 
 ers " now available, upon which it is possible to play hundreds 
 of the best-known classical and modern works. The control 
 of such an instrument is acquired in a very short space of 
 time by a really musical person, and I feel most strongly 
 that, once the erroneous idea can be dissipated that it is a 
 purely unsympathetic and expressionless piece of mechanism, 
 its future as an educational factor will be assured, and its 
 value in preparing the way for the appreciation of the per- 
 formance of the great artist duly recognized and established. 1 
 In connection with the Musical Appreciation class, however, 
 
 1 If the "Player" were so used, it would be well for the teacher to 
 point out (by playing certain passages in the course of the music with 
 his own fingers) what the mechanical instrument cannot do, so that the 
 pupils might realize the difference when they go to concerts, and thus 
 appreciate more clearly what the artist alone can do. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 41 
 
 the great matter is that whether the teacher plays the 
 illustrations himself or uses a " Player," or presses into his 
 service some of his more talented pupils such illustrations 
 should be sufficiently well rendered as to interest the listeners 
 and grip their attention, and, moreover, to serve as a good 
 model for their own efforts at interpretation. 
 
 To sum up : the duty of the " Appreciation " teacher will 
 be to seek to open the ears of his pupil " to behold wondrous 
 things " as yet unheard by him, simply 
 for the reason that those very ears have The ,, 
 not been brought into condition to observe ^ 
 and to perceive. Do not some of us know ear " 
 what it is to have walked along the country- 
 side with some artist friend, and to have felt positively 
 ashamed that we did not see one-hundredth part of what 
 he saw? that touch of color on the roof of the old barn, 
 the glint of the sunlight along the meadow by the stream ? 
 When, however, we are shown how to use our eyes, then 
 it is that we begin to realize a little of what the painter sees, 
 and are able to some extent to look at things from his point 
 of view. So, surely, is it with music; one knows in one's 
 own experience something of the joy that comes to the 
 earnest student when one has, perchance, been able, by just 
 a word, to draw his attention to some beautiful point which 
 in all probability he would have missed, for the reason that 
 his mind was not attuned so to speak to the task of 
 observing such things. 
 
 How, then, is the teacher to help his pupil to meet the 
 music in a spirit of alertness, so that the more subtle points 
 of interest and beauty in the composer's work may not 
 pass him by unheeded, unrecognized, unen joyed? First 
 and foremost, he must avoid the danger of " shooting too 
 far over his pupil's head." In connection 
 with this, I may say that certain schemes The management 
 for children's concerts which I have seen f A PP reci ation 
 ,,... ., ,. -, -, classes The 
 
 sketched in journals dealing with education Teacher's aims 
 
 seem to me to be lamentably deficient in 
 any sort of idea as to what can be grasped by the child-mind : 
 in such schemes I have found elaborate works by Schumann, 
 Brahms, Wagner, and others calmly proposed for the chil- 
 dren's consumption an error of judgment which a little 
 practical acquaintance with the average child's powers of 
 
42 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 assimilation would have prevented. No ! it is of the highest 
 importance that the teacher should keep at first well within 
 that child's existing range of experiences, making him gradu- 
 ally begin to stand on tiptoe so to speak. By such means 
 his intelligence is awakened naturally ; and he is encouraged, 
 instead of being disheartened and even repelled by being 
 allowed to wallow in a sea of difficulties. The teacher's aim 
 it seems to me must therefore be : 
 
 I. To awaken the sympathy and to cultivate the 
 
 imagination of his pupil. 
 
 II. To help him to perceive the composer's art, to 
 follow his plan, and to take an interest hi the 
 development and interplay of his ideas. 
 HI. To help him to recognize the particular message 
 of each of the great composers and of each of 
 the great periods in art, by showing him some- 
 thing of the particular style and idiom exemplified 
 by each. 
 
 In other words, he will seek to interest him along three 
 main parallel lines, namely, the imaginative, the construc- 
 tional and the historical. With young children the first of 
 these will be followed, to the virtual exclusion of the other 
 two, and much simple, imaginative music will be played to the 
 pupil almost entirely without verbal comment on the techni- 
 cal side. The wise teacher will on no account force his emo- 
 tional susceptibility by asking him to describe what he 
 " feels " ! but will just let him drink in the music and 
 think about it as he likes. At a somewhat more advanced 
 age the pupil may as I have already said elsewhere well 
 be called upon to look somewhat closer into the texture of 
 the music, to gain some little grasp of its form, to recognize 
 its period and style, to follow the uses to which the composer 
 puts his chief themes the tracing of the adventures of his 
 principal characters, so to speak and thus consciously 
 to appreciate (i.e., apprehend) some, at least, of the many 
 interesting features of the music which a capable and re- 
 sourceful teacher can so fruitfully bring to his notice. As 
 a modern writer has said : 
 
 " There are periods and degrees of development in the minds 
 of children to which correspond different manners of teaching 
 .... as we make appeal to one or other of the growing 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 43 
 
 faculties. The first stage is imaginative, the second calls not 
 only upon the imagination and memory, but upon the understand- 
 ing, and the third, which is the beginning of a period of fruition, 
 begins to exercise the judgment, and to give some ideas concern- 
 ing principles of ... criticism." l 
 
 In dealing with the " constructional " side, the element 
 of form or design may be brought home to Simple ideas 
 a child's mind very simply by the teacher of construction 
 playing him some such well-known tune as " Barbara Allen." 
 
 Then, by a few words suited to his understanding, the first 
 step could well be taken in showing him that pieces of music 
 have a shape; that, for example, such things usually begin 
 and end in the same key; that, as it were, after starting 
 away from home on a walk or an excursion, we naturally 
 make our " return journey," and at last land safely home 
 again. By some such illustration as this, the intelligent 
 teacher could readily and effectively appeal to the child- 
 mind. 
 
 With a class of young pupils, it would be quite easy for the 
 teacher to show how the two phrases of the tune are depend- 
 ent one on the other, by stopping at the end of the first four 
 bars and asking if it sounded finished, or not. The answer 
 would almost certainly be in the negative, and from that 
 the teacher could make clear to them two simple facts under- 
 lying all musical plan or structure, viz. : 
 
 I. The idea of some sort of balance, arrived at by one 
 period in some way answering another, and 
 
 1 Janet Erskine Stuart "The Education of Catholic Girls." 
 mans and Co.) 
 
 (Long- 
 
44 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 n. The idea of the importance of a Tonic, and the 
 impossibility of a completely satisfactory con- 
 clusion anywhere else than upon that Tonic 
 note, or Tonic chord. 
 
 The next step in the teaching of Form or Design in music 
 might well be that of drawing the attention of the class to 
 the fact that, although many little tunes like " Barbara 
 Allen " are constructed on the plan of one phrase answering 
 another in this very uniform way, others of greater length 
 have a somewhat different shape, a shape which might well 
 be described as that of the " Musical sandwich " : 
 
 "CHARLIE is MY DARLING" 
 
 It will be noticed that the two foregoing illustrations are 
 both national tunes, and I should like to say, in passing, 
 that illustrations cannot be taken from a better source. They 
 are nearly all beautiful, all are simple, and I know nothing 
 that will have a more healthy effect on the child's mind 
 musically and otherwise than an extensive acquaintance 
 from earliest years with these products of the national spirit. 
 If it were to do nothing more than give him a distaste 
 as it surely would for the vapid music-hall " slang " (for 
 music has slang as well as speech), most of us would agree, I 
 think, that it would be at least worth while. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 45 
 
 Well, to go back to our tune. Here it would be a good 
 thing for the teacher to try to make the pupils tell him if they 
 found this tune and " Barbara Allen " alike, or if they found 
 any difference between them. Then, if they noticed any dif- 
 ference, to make them say, as far as they could, where the 
 difference lay. I can quite well believe that there would 
 be not a few eager listeners who would have noticed that the 
 opening phrase came back at the end. If so, he would have 
 his opportunity, for at once he would begin to emphasize, 
 as a thing of importance, this coming back to the first idea 
 in a composition, and would play or sing other simple pieces 
 having a similar design, such, e.g., as " The Bluebells of 
 Scotland " or " The Vicar of Bray." 
 
 A point that might be insisted upon in connection with this 
 type of tune is that the sense of " home-coming " at the end 
 is made much stronger : 
 
 I. By the dwelling for a greater length of time in 
 another district which in itself sets up a desire 
 for the " homeward journey " (here the teacher 
 would play the first two phrases only of " Charlie 
 is my Darling ") ; 
 
 II. By the emphatic restatement of the opening phrase, 
 which gives a completely satisfactory sense of 
 " being at home " (then he would finish the 
 tune). 
 
 Thus, in the simplest and most natural way, he would 
 have been able to enforce one of the most important facts 
 of music, viz., that of the ternary, or threefold, plan which 
 underlies most of the music of the last one hundred and fifty 
 years, i.e., from the time of Haydn and Mozart onwards. 
 But this enforcing would have been done without effort, 
 without the cumbersome machinery of elaborate technical 
 terms : merely by the familiar and easily understood figure 
 of a sandwich, the first phrase and its repetition at the end 
 being the two slices of bread, and the middle phrase the 
 meat or the jam ! 
 
 In dealing with these two tunes, I have been showing a 
 little how their constructive aspects may be made clear to a 
 class of quite young children, and, of course, it is upon this 
 important side of the question that they will need the most 
 help. But in directing their attention to such things, a 
 
46 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 matter that on no account must be omitted is the cultivation 
 of a perception of the character of the music on the part of the 
 pupils, who should be asked to give their 
 own ideas on the subject. In all probability, 
 most of the members of the class would 
 have noticed that " Barbara Allen" is quiet and a little 
 pathetic, whereas " Charlie is my Darling " is bold and even 
 martial. Here, again so intimately associated are the two 
 factors of construction and expression it would interest 
 the class to show them how this very difference of expression 
 depends upon the smooth and almost monotonous flow of the 
 notes in " Barbara Allen," as contrasted with the springing, 
 jumping figure that goes through the whole of " Charlie is my 
 Darling " with such vigorous, pulsating life and energy. 
 
 One might also illustrate how this energy is heightened by 
 the emphasis derived from the insistent repetition of little 
 fragments such as : 
 
 
 etc. 
 
 and so on according to the intelligence of the class and 
 (what is very important) the intelligence and ability of the 
 teacher! 
 
 Closely connected with this perception of the character 
 
 of the music comes the exercise of the listener's imagination. 
 
 . And here it is most essential for the teacher 
 
 the imagination to ^ >ear * n rmn( i tne nee d of stimulating this 
 side of the pupil's nature wisely and without 
 any forcing. In endeavoring to do this, it would, of course, 
 be legitimate to make use of the more pictorial or illustrative 
 type of music that which has a more or less definite 
 " program," such as the overture to Mendelssohn's " Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream," and some of the smaller pieces 
 of Schumann, Grieg, Macdowell and others. Care must 
 be taken, it need hardly be said, in introducing such pieces 
 to the pupil's notice, that he does not run away with the 
 foolish idea that all music " means something." The lady 
 who said that she always " saw cathedrals in listening to 
 Beethoven, and moonlight and vague shadows when she 
 heard Debussy " of course had a right to her own feelings; 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 47 
 
 but for the teacher to suggest or hint at such perfectly irrel- 
 evant ideas would, it almost goes without saying, be both 
 foolish and pernicious. It is, however, none the less true 
 that in certain cases the composer himself seeks to direct 
 the thoughts of the listener into some specific channel, 
 and an endeavor on the part of the teacher to help the pupil 
 to come into closer relation with the composer's train of 
 thought, by the use of poetic imagery, analogies with Nature, 
 and other similar means, seems to me not only permissible 
 but wise, and likely to be productive of increased interest 
 and corresponding progress on the pupil's part. 
 
 Among the essentials for intelligent listening, none is more 
 important than the power to follow at any rate to some 
 extent the development of the composer's 
 themes or ideas. In this, in large measure, Following the 
 lies the secret of making sense " of any * 
 work of more than very modest proportions thoughts 
 and very limited scope. We have to remem- 
 ber that music is not a simple but a complex art, and " the 
 listener must hold in his mind the thought of organized 
 development as he follows a performance phrase by phrase." 
 He must " hear each phrase as a preparation for that which 
 is to come ; his mind [must be] alert, as if about to spring 
 ahead of the actual tones and anticipate their direction, or 
 at least ... to connect each passage with what he has 
 already heard and construct in his mind more or less extensive 
 divisions of the work as he goes along." l In many of the 
 Sonatas and Symphonies of Beethoven, for example, there 
 are movements in which the whole fabric is developed from 
 one or two comparatively insignificant musical ideas which 
 in very truth hold the life of the movement within them, 
 just as the seed contains all the potentialities of growth and 
 development which we associate with the plant or the tree. 
 
 It is not too much to say that it is to the extent that we 
 keep firm hold on our grasp of these germ-ideas in our listen- 
 ing that we gain a successful conception of the whole move- 
 ment, one in which we are aware of the master-purpose domi- 
 nating it throughout. Thus, and thus only, can we be 
 truly in that position of " intelligent expectation " to which 
 allusion has been made. Moreover, the growing ability 
 thus to follow the composer's train of thought will reveal to 
 1 W. H. Dickinson "The Education of a Music-lover." 
 
48 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 us more and more of his artistic individuality, and (as one 
 has said elsewhere) l of that " power which is not shared 
 by the painter or sculptor, and which the artist in words 
 possesses only in a far less notable degree than does the musi- 
 cian the power of making the same original thought or 
 idea express the most varied emotions, as it were in the 
 twinkling of an eye. Music, in this respect, would seem to 
 get nearest to life of all the arts, for in the rapidity and sure- 
 ness with which one idea may be made to pass instantane- 
 ously ' from grave to gay, from lively to severe' we have 
 something closely akin to the ever-changing expression of 
 the human countenance, which is, of course, in a marked 
 sense the index of the mind and soul. It need hardly be 
 said that in the representative arts of painting or sculpture 
 the delineation of shifting emotions in this way is mani- 
 festly impossible, for the expression once painted or chiselled 
 must of necessity remain exactly as it was first conceived 
 and executed." 
 
 Even in the case of the young pupil, I am as sure as I can 
 be of anything that if, instead of the teacher giving him such 
 a piece as Beethoven's little G'-minor Sonata (Op. 49, No. i), 
 with the mere request to " go and learn it," he were himself 
 to interest that pupil in it first not so much from the point 
 of view of execution, as from the standpoint of musical art 
 the result in that pupil's mind ever afterwards would be very 
 different from what it usually is. 2 Most teachers know 
 something of the callous way in which such incidents as that 
 of the delicious little " farewell " at the end of the first part 
 of the " Andante " (just before the first double-bar), are 
 
 
 f-nr- 
 
 calando 
 
 treated by the average piano-pupil whose " ears have not 
 been opened to hear." If the teacher were to play the piece 
 to him, and show how this little phrase is as it were 
 just Beethoven's " backward look " at the second theme of 
 
 "Aural Culture based upon Musical Appreciation" (Stewart Mac- 
 rson an 
 1 have 
 experience. 
 
 pherson and Ernest Read), Part II., pages 175-6. 
 
 2 1 have seen a class of young children spell-bound under such an 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 49 
 
 the movement, as if he were loth to lose its tender fragrance, 
 the whole matter would, at any rate, be put on a different 
 level, and there would be some chance of its being looked at 
 from a different view-point. It is not unlikely, too, that 
 in such an act on the teacher's part, there might be just the 
 touch that was needed to awaken that sympathetic mental 
 attitude to which reference has already been made. 
 
 In passing, one might say that the whole of that long-suffer- 
 ing movement of Beethoven's little Sonata is full of delightful 
 points of thematic development ; particularly interesting 
 is the opening of its second part : 
 
 etc. 
 
 where the same 2nd subject tune is shown in a mood of 
 strenuous determination (sadly unrealized by the general 
 run of pupils, bent on the unequal contest between the 
 " shakes " and their own recalcitrant fingers !), and so also is 
 the twilight calm of the Coda, where the theme dies away in 
 charming duet-fashion, thus : 
 
 etc. 
 
 The recognition of such incidents as these, and the follow- 
 ing of the composer as he brings out of his treasure-house 
 these jewels of his art, lie at the root of that fuller enjoyment 
 and appreciation of the masterpieces of such symphonists as 
 Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, and of the great 
 dramatic composer of the igth century, Wagner. The 
 power thus to follow indeed adds that " very much more " of 
 which the writer of the Times article spoke when he said : 
 " Whatever satisfaction may be derived from music by those 
 to whom it is merely a thing of the nerves, or, at least, of 
 E 
 
50 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 the surface emotions, the [true] listener has all that, and 
 very much more." In conclusion : of the immense value 
 of the " appreciative " study of music I am absolutely con- 
 vinced as convinced as I am of the sterility of much of 
 
 the so-called musical education with which 
 ^ppretiative " we are a ^ ^ ammar - Under the influence of 
 teaching the kind ^ teaching I have been advocating, 
 
 and in the atmosphere of a sympathetic 
 relation to music which is thereby possible, the interest even 
 of those whom we are pleased to call unmusical pupils is 
 stimulated almost beyond belief, and the result is, in countless 
 instances, a new outlook upon the art itself, and a new joy 
 in their own lives. 
 
 I am not talking at random or as an unpractical visionary ; 
 I speak that which I do know. The testimony of those 
 teachers who have pursued, and are pursuing, this most 
 hopeful and inspiring work, either in school or out of it, is 
 unanimous ; the " Appreciation class " over and over again 
 has come to be the most eagerly looked-for event of the week's 
 work, and the experience of the teachers themselves has 
 invariably pointed in the same direction, namely, to quick- 
 ened interest and real musical growth. 
 
 A striking instance of this came recently under my notice. 
 Before the annual concert at one of our great public schools, 
 
 at which a professional orchestra was to per- 
 experiment form > the P^cipal music-master offered to 
 
 meet any boys who liked to come to him 
 week by week during the term, and to play for them the vari- 
 ous works that were to form the program of the concert. 
 The first week about thirty somewhat shy boys put in an 
 appearance ; he played to them, made them sing (or whistle, 
 if they could not sing) the chief themes until they were 
 thoroughly familiar with them, discussed the form and the 
 various points of interest in the course of the music, and so 
 forth. The result was a splendid success ; the little group 
 of boys was enthusiastic, and after that first meeting the 
 master had the satisfaction of welcoming as many as two 
 hundred boys at his weekly class, boys who voluntarily gave 
 up other occupations in order to hear the music and his talk 
 about it. 
 
 What a different attitude will be assumed towards music by 
 those boys in future from that which so often obtains amongst 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 51 
 
 the youth of our schools ! Something of the dignity and the 
 worthiness of the musical art will have entered, perhaps 
 unconsciously, into their minds, and instead of " music " 
 being associated merely with the idea of somewhat dismal 
 piano-practice, shirked and not unnaturally shirked 
 because taken out of play-time, it will connote the idea of the 
 ampler and nobler atmosphere of a Beethoven symphony, 
 perchance, into which they have been enabled to enter by 
 the wise and far-seeing action of their master, who surely 
 built wisely and well, upon firm foundations. 
 
 The art needs better listeners ; the composer, the per- 
 former, longs for the " gracious sympathy of the understand- 
 ing " in his hearers ; is it not upon some such lines as those I 
 have outlined in these articles that the consummation of 
 these hopes may ultimately be found ? 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 53 
 
 PART THREE 
 THE MUSIC-TEACHER: HIS AIMS AND IDEALS 
 
 "What one ought to aim at is not the establish- 
 ment of personal influence . . . but to share 
 such good things as one possesses, to assist rather 
 than to sway." A.C.BENSON 
 
 IT is not too much to say that one of the most important 
 questions that press upon the music-student, at least at some 
 period of his career, is that of the consideration the serious 
 consideration of all that is involved in the expression, so 
 familiar to our ears, but often so imperfectly understood 
 the Music-teacher. It is more than likely that the majority 
 of those who study the art of music seriously make some 
 acquaintance with the duties of the teacher's office during the 
 years that succeed their studentship, and it is well, it is most 
 vitally necessary, that we should reflect very earnestly upon 
 what that office involves in the way of responsiblity and of 
 ideals. 
 
 Now, it seems to me that the first thing it is needful to 
 impress upon our young musicians is that teaching is an 
 art in itself, as worthy in its way as the art of the executant 
 or the composer, and that it is an indignity to its honor for 
 it ever to be regarded as a pis alter, or as a trade to be fol- 
 lowed and endured merely because they find it difficult 
 or impossible to earn a livelihood as public performers or 
 as composers. They must see that the teacher's career is 
 not for the broken-down performer there is no use for him 
 there ; they must realize that they cannot enter the teacher's 
 calling, any more than the holy estate of matrimony, " lightly 
 or unadvisedly," but must be deeply sensible of the responsi- 
 bility attaching to their position, and of the untold influence 
 
 x The substance of some addresses to music-students, delivered 
 during the years 1914 and 1915. 
 
54 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 they may be able to exercise, either for good or for ill, upon 
 those who come into close personal contact with them. 
 
 William James, the American psychologist, writing a few 
 years back, was able to say : 
 
 "In the general activity and uprising of ideal interests which 
 everyone with an eye for fact can discern all about us in American 
 life, there is perhaps no more promising feature than the fermenta- 
 tion which for a dozen years or more has been going on among the 
 teachers. In whatever sphere of education their functions lie, 
 there is to be seen among them a really inspiring amount of search- 
 ing of heart about the highest concerns of their profession. . . . 
 The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their 
 hands. The earnestness which they at present show in striving 
 to enlighten and strengthen themselves is an index of the nation's 
 probabilities of advance in all ideal directions." 1 
 
 Well, it appears to me that a similar fermentation has for 
 some time past been observable amongst the teachers in our 
 own land, and that this stir and movement 
 has commun i cate d itself in large measure 
 Teaclers to tnose wno are dealing with the more 
 
 special form of teaching connected with our 
 own art of music. I would, therefore, urge the younger 
 members of our profession, and particularly the students 
 nearing the completion of their ordinary musical training, 
 to recognize the absolute need for careful study of the newer 
 conditions that are arising all around us. 
 
 Great changes are often brought about by other processes 
 than those involving the sudden overthrow of existing things ; 
 there is a leaven which works almost unobserved by the 
 multitude, but which nevertheless ends by " leavening the 
 whole lump," and before we are aware of it the " old order " 
 has changed, and those who trusted to the comforting but 
 deluding thought that " what has been will be," awaken to 
 the disconcerting realization of a movement and an advance 
 in which they have had neither part nor lot, and in the midst 
 of which they find themselves mystified, nonplussed and 
 outclassed. One of these bloodless revolutions is actually 
 in process of being carried out at the present time, and some 
 among us seem to know little about it yet. Certain ques- 
 tions are being put by those who think questions asked 
 both of themselves and of those around them. We, as 
 
 1 "Talks to Teachers." William James. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 55 
 
 teachers of the art of music, cannot hold ourselves aloof and 
 say, " These things are not for me ; I may go on my way 
 without troubling my brain about such inconvenient and 
 disturbing matters." I say they are for us, everyone of us ; 
 the student, the professor, the executant, the composer, 
 for we all hang together here, and unless we are untrue 
 to ourselves and to our art, we must each in our own 
 respective sphere and degree take cognizance of the 
 thoughts and the doubts that arise in the minds of those 
 who are responsible for the education of the young in our 
 midst. 
 
 For upon the character of the musical training of the average 
 material to be found amongst us depends in the long run the 
 future of music in this country. The composer, the execu- 
 tant no less than the teacher is concerned, as I have 
 just said, with all this, for neither can do any " mighty 
 work " where there is " unbelief," that is, where he cannot 
 work in an atmosphere of sympathy and understanding. 
 Therefore, it seems to me, it is of the first 
 importance that those whose duty it will The Teacher 
 be to deal with this average material 
 the school-girls and school-boys shall 
 be aware of their great responsibility, and see where and 
 how they may be of untold assistance in the preparing of 
 the soil for the harvest we all would fain think is to be reaped 
 in the time to come. 
 
 Suppose, then, that any one of you students were to be 
 setting out, after a happy and enthusiastic period of study 
 and intercourse within the walls of some great musical in- 
 stitution, to take up your life-work as a teacher. Let me 
 say that that will be the moment when you will need all the 
 hope and all the true kind of ambition that you can summon 
 to your aid. For it is quite likely that after the glow and 
 color of your student-days when you find yourself left 
 to yourself a certain flatness and dulness may creep over 
 your outlook, and a none too welcome reaction set in which 
 may need all your efforts to combat. 
 
 Then is the time to look up, to set your house in order 
 so to speak and to gain some sort of idea as to what you 
 are going to aim at, what ideals you are going to follow. 
 
 First, then, it is necessary to have some clear notion of 
 what your duties are to be as a teacher. What is to be your 
 
56 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 aim? You will answer, perhaps, " To teach my pupil to 
 
 play or sing." Yes, true; but there is something more 
 
 than that you have to do, and that is, to 
 
 WhaJ should be teach your pupil mus i C) an( i to help him to 
 
 aims? 6 ** get * nto toucn ^h tn ^ s wonderful and 
 
 beautiful thing which we love ourselves 
 and which, if we are sincere and earnest, we shall want to 
 make him love, too. Now, I fear that this thought has 
 not always been sufficiently present in the minds of some 
 teachers, and if we think of many of those so-called " music- 
 lessons " that are given all over the country day by day, 
 I fancy we shall not be able to assert with a vast degree of 
 confidence that our children's lessons and practice have 
 invariably yielded them that keen interest and joy which 
 should be, not the exception, but the rule, if they are to be 
 of any value at all. 
 
 I remember a friend of mine telling me that he was once 
 called upon to hear a girl play, and when she entered the 
 room with a bundle of pieces under her arm he, thinking to 
 put her at her ease, said, " Come along, now, what will you 
 play first to me ? Which of all these things do you like the 
 best?" The answer was at the moment somewhat of a 
 shock : "I hate the lot ! " Surely there was something 
 wrong here ; the fault did not lie with the music, for it was 
 entirely good. Did it lie with the girl herself, or had it any- 
 thing to do with the manner in which the whole subject had, 
 up to that moment, been presented to her ? It is an interest- 
 ing point. 
 
 The .first thing, then, for the would-be teacher to realize 
 very clearly is what he is going to set out to do. Why is he 
 going to be a music-teacher? Why should he not be any- 
 thing else just as well ? 
 
 Does he really believe in his work ? Does he see why his 
 pupil should learn music, and does he connect this learning 
 of music with the wider aspect of the matter represented by 
 the education of the pupil as a whole in other words the 
 relation of music to the various other parts of that education ? 
 
 These are matters which cannot be put on one side as 
 of no particular moment ; they are vital if any advance 
 is to be made, or any real and valuable results are to be 
 achieved. It is necessary to remember that most of you, 
 in all probability, will have to deal, not with professed 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 57 
 
 music-students, but with girls and boys with whom music is 
 one activity among many, and your aim must clearly be to 
 make its study something of real value in their mental 
 development. 
 
 It used to be a common experience to hear the music- 
 student, about to embark upon his or her teaching career, 
 declare with an amusing assumption of 
 superiority, " Oh ! I shall never take begin- 
 ners! " And perhaps this kind of thing is 
 not altogether extinct even to-day. I al- 
 ways say to those whom I can in any way advise that the 
 one -thing they should pray for is that they may have begin- 
 ners ! Far from its being a position of inferiority to deal 
 with the child, it is to my mind not only the most hopeful 
 phase of the teacher's work, but it needs a special training 
 of the most thorough and searching kind. 
 
 Suppose, then, that a child were to come to you for his 
 first lesson, what should be your own course of action, and 
 what should be the result upon the pupil of having come? 
 Of course, your plan of campaign would have to vary accord- 
 ing to the previous musical experiences, if any, of the child 
 himself ; therefore, it would be your duty to find out what 
 those experiences had been, in order that you might build 
 upon them as far as it was possible so to do. In such a case 
 as this we have to remember that it is quite likely that you 
 would be giving him his first really serious impressions of 
 music ; and first impressions are peculiarly 
 vivid and lasting. In dealing with the 
 young child, the great point is to win his 
 sympathy and his cooperation. You have to find an en- 
 trance into his mind, and to make him understand that what 
 you are going to do together is something that is alive, real, 
 fundamental something in which he will be able to feel 
 there is a living spirit at work. The faculty of wonder is 
 a very real thing in a small child, and upon that it is wise 
 to base a good deal. His mental grasp is naturally small, 
 his power of expressing himself in words almost non-existent 
 so far as matters intellectual are concerned, his interest in 
 printed signs, such as words or notes, of the smallest. And 
 yet, too often it has been the custom to seat the child at 
 the piano face to face with a book containing certain caba- 
 listic and (to him) meaningless signs, and to inform him 
 
58 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 that one of them is called a whole note, another a half -note 
 and so on facts which do not interest him in the least, and 
 to which he remains stolidly indifferent. 
 
 Indeed, why should they interest him? In themselves 
 they are, of course, not musical ideas at all ; they are merely 
 signs machinery, so to speak which he is frequently 
 called upon to master before any vision of music reaches him 
 at all. 1 Is it any wonder that such an introduction to our 
 beautiful art should cause many a small person to fall by the 
 way, and to become cynical where music and all its works 
 are concerned ? 
 
 Happily, it is increasingly being realized that the founda- 
 tion upon which all hope of real musical progress must be 
 built is the training of the ear. It is said, and said truly, that 
 every piano-lesson well given must in 
 
 itself be an ear - trainin g lesson > but that 
 
 is not enough. Ear-training in its more 
 comprehensive sense is far too large a subject to be dis- 
 missed in that somewhat vague and abstract way ; it must 
 strike at the root of much that is independent of connection 
 with any particular instrument, and indeed should begin 
 long before there is any thought of definite instrumental 
 teaching whatever. It must connote the gradual sensitizing 
 of the whole being of the child in the direction of music 
 through the development of his feeling for time and rhythm 
 and the relations of pitch, the awakening of his imagination, 
 and the stimulating of his powers of observation. By such 
 means he will, when he comes to the point of learning an 
 instrument, have some chance of doing so with ear and mind 
 to some extent prepared to cope with the difficulties he will 
 have to encounter, instead of meeting a solid and forbidding 
 phalanx of physical and mental complications before which 
 he retires baffled and discouraged. 
 
 In the earliest stages of the child's musical work, it seems 
 to me that the very fact of his own " motor-activity" 
 
 may become a valuable adjunct in the 
 The Chad's t k f Drawing out his powers of self- 
 
 '' motor-activity" . TT i 1 
 
 expression. He longs, as you know, to 
 
 be on the move (you often wish he would not, perhaps, but 
 
 he does) ; why not take advantage, therefore, of this natural 
 
 tendency, and use it for your own purposes? We hear 
 
 1 This process is called "teaching him his notes !" 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 59 
 
 much talk in these days about bodily Rhythmic movements 
 in connection with the teaching and learning of music. How 
 far are they in accordance with Nature's laws? How far 
 are they of value in laying a foundation for that sensitive- 
 ness to order and rhythm and that disciplined expression 
 which is the very life and soul of all musical creation and 
 execution? The name of M. Jacques-Dalcroze will doubt- 
 less come to the minds of many in the endeavor to answer 
 these questions. Without its being necessary to commit one- 
 self to an indorsement of the whole, or anything like the 
 whole, of his system, it should, I think, be evident that 
 the root-principle of much that he advocates is absolutely 
 sound, for it just amounts to this, that the young child's 
 natural means of expression is through bodily movement. 1 
 Not only are the ideas of pulse, time, the progressive nature 
 of rhythm and the principles of form or shape easily expressed 
 by bodily movement, but, what is even more important, 
 in the earliest stages, the child's perception of the character 
 of a great deal of simple music may be stimulated, and his 
 listening powers developed enormously, by the aid of the 
 unrestrained running, skipping, marching, or whatever it 
 may be, which is the result of his own initia- (( 
 tive, and is suggested to his small mind by bodily 
 
 *. i? i- -LI t 1 movements 
 
 the music itself, being therefore his own 
 
 response to its appeal. 2 I cannot enlarge here upon this 
 most important aspect of the whole matter ; I can only say 
 that experience has confirmed the extraordinary results 
 claimed from work in this direction (especially in class), as 
 a preliminary to the more severe call upon the pupil's mental 
 powers later on, as he passes out of early childhood and 
 reaches a stage at which his thinking and reasoning powers 
 have developed sufficiently to respond to the demands 
 made upon them by the teacher, without recourse to such 
 physical aids. 
 
 When the more serious business of his aural training 
 begins, it is in most cases possible to correlate such aural 
 
 1 1 say advisedly, "the young child's," as it should be obvious that 
 this does not hold good in the case of the adult or the adolescent. 
 
 2 The development of the child's own initiative in this way was, as 
 far as my own knowledge serves me, first carried out systematically at 
 the Streatham Hill High School under the direction of Miss Marie 
 Salt, where it still forms an important element of the musical work 
 during the Kindergarten stage. 
 
60 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 training with the study of an instrument. But it should 
 be remembered that, unless the development of the pupil's 
 
 . . j ear and mind is, all along the line, in ad- 
 far and mind / 1 / / 
 first ; fingers next vance of ms mere powers of finger-execution, 
 his progress musically will be retarded and 
 checked beyond belief, and Nemesis will follow. 
 
 It is evident that much of the pupil's aural training can 
 be most effectively carried out in class, where the stimulus 
 of numbers, and the interest aroused by seeing and hearing 
 the efforts of others, are factors of extreme importance and 
 value. Herein lies one very strong argument in favor of 
 the child's musical studies being carried on in school (that 
 is, of course, wherever the conditions are satisfactory), for 
 there it is possible for him to reap the immense advantages 
 of the ear-training and choral classes, which are playing 
 every day a more and more notable part in the musical educa- 
 tion of our boys and girls, and are being 
 and class work conducted with ever growing efficiency 
 and success. And I would urge upon all 
 music-students the extreme importance of gaining practical 
 knowledge of the methods of dealing with such classes, 
 for this knowledge is in many cases now, and will be so 
 increasingly in the immediate future, a sine qua non for the 
 teacher who aspires to a post in one of our better-equipped 
 schools, where those responsible for the education of our 
 children are recognizing, in ever larger measure, the value 
 of such work in their mental development, and are welcoming 
 the cooperation of the musician in their task in a spirit of 
 ever greater sympathy and regard. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 61 
 
 II 
 
 THE advice once given by Samuel Butler, not to learn to 
 do, but to learn by doing, has a very distinct bearing in 
 connection with the drawing out of the musical powers of the 
 young pupil. There is one side of the general teaching of 
 music which, until recently, has had little or no attention 
 paid to it, but which is of the highest consequence in the 
 artistic growth of the child I mean the cultivation of his 
 own creative faculty. William James, from whose " Talks 
 to Teachers " I have already quoted, says again : 
 
 " During the [early] years of childhood the mind is most interested 
 in the sensible properties of material things. Constructiveness is the 
 instinct most active ; and by the incessant hammer- ...., . T 
 
 1 11 i 1 i 11 William James 
 
 ing and sawing, and dressing and undressing dolls, 
 putting of things together and taking them apart, the child not only 
 trains the muscles to co-ordinate action, but accumulates a store of 
 . . . conceptions which are the basis of his knowledge of the 
 material world through life. . . . One of the best fruits of the 
 * child-study ' movement has been to re-instate [constructive] activi- 
 ties to their proper place in a sound system of education. Feed the 
 growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for 
 which from year to year he shows a natural craving, and he will 
 develop in adult life a sounder sort of mental tissue, even though 
 he may seem to be 'wasting' a great deal of his growing time in 
 the eyes of those for whom the only channels of learning are books 
 and verbally communicated information" 
 
 With regard to literature and music, most children are 
 capable of a certain amount of original invention, and it 
 will be found that many will, if the experi- chad' 
 ment be made, soon be able to construct crea ti ve faculty 
 little tunes for themselves. " In such work, 
 which need not absorb much time or labor, children take 
 the keenest interest, as they find in it a fresh means of self- 
 expression. Even the Kindergarten child who, in response 
 to his teacher's singing of (it may be) a simple fragment of 
 tune, such as the following : 
 
62 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 pipes in his tiny voice without any thought of the 
 technicalities of notation, of which at that particular stage 
 he would know nothing another fragment something like 
 this: 
 
 has taken the first step along the desired path, and experi- 
 ences a sense of real delight in the consciousness that he really 
 has ' made something ' himself. At the same time he has, 
 without effort or undue labor, learned an important fact 
 connected with the musical ' phrase ' which will stand him 
 in good stead later on when the more technical part of his 
 work begins. The object of such constructive work is ... 
 to apply to music-study the sane ideas now gaining ground 
 with reference to the training of the pupil's powers of obser- 
 vation and imagination by means of drawing, where the 
 ability to originate, however feebly, is beginning to be recog- 
 nized as lying at the root of all real and lasting progress in 
 those aspects of mental development which the use of pencil 
 or brush is supposed effectively to encourage and to stimu- 
 late." * 
 
 The headmistress of one of our most important London 
 schools said in a recent address on " Music in School-life " : 
 
 "Of all the various types of pupils that pass through our hands, 
 hardly any is so dreaded by a keen teacher as the dull, unrespon- 
 ,_, . . sive boys or girls who never brighten into interest, 
 
 ofocS^ZU who never produce an independent idea We all 
 . b , fa . long for pupils who snow some spark of origmal- 
 c ity or imagination, and sometimes we know 
 not by what means to strike that spark. Might not music furnish 
 that means? A dull class in my own school was asked the other 
 day to write a melody to 'Hush-a-bye, baby.' No hints of any 
 kind were given, but every child was pledged to make an attempt. 
 All brought their melody, and all had chosen f time, the reason 
 given being that you could rock better to it. One child brought 
 a charming melody written in the minor mode, and when asked 
 why she chose the minor rather than the major, said 'Oh, because 
 
 1 "Aural Culture based upon Musical Appreciation." Stewart Mac- 
 pherson and Ernest Read. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 63 
 
 it is so sad and dreamy the major is bright and jolly and would 
 wake the baby up ! ' These may be small things in themselves, 
 but I think they show that music taught in this way does stimulate 
 imagination and originality." . . . "I speak from personal 
 experience in the literature classes, which I teach myself, when I 
 say that I have noticed in girls who have had this form of aural 
 training a keener perception of the beauty of great poetry, a quicker 
 response to its melody, its rhythm, its cadences, a dawning dis- 
 crimination between good and bad in literary style in short, a 
 greater sensitiveness to beauty of sound and form. You will smile, 
 perhaps, when I tell you that we encourage our children to write 
 words to the melodies they compose, or to 
 write words and set them to music; yet it is 
 curious to notice how soon they become criti- 
 cal of their own and each other's productions, and how, by degrees, 
 there emerges a perception, limited, of course, by their youth and 
 inexperience, yet genuine so far as it goes, of the word-music of 
 literature." 
 
 I think it will be generally conceded that the bane of much 
 teaching has been, and often still is, that it has tended to 
 check initiative, and this fact has at times shown itself most 
 fatally in the case of music. Let me urge those who teach, 
 or intend to teach, to take full advantage of the child's 
 native desire to " do something off his own bat " ; I can 
 assure them that they will be surprised at the results. 
 
 One very valuable outcome of even the most elementary 
 creative work is the rapid growth of the feeling for shape and 
 balance, the absence of which is directly responsible for the 
 greater part of the bad " phrasing " we are all acquainted 
 with in the instrumental efforts of so many pupils. This 
 faulty " phrasing " is mainly due to 
 an obvious aural defect; the idea of 
 shape and balance to which I have just 
 referred is not, to any effective extent, familiar to their 
 ears. By encouraging them to sing little answers to given 
 phrases sung or played by the teacher, they are helped to 
 feel and to hear the need for " phrase-shape " in a very 
 marked way, and thus far there is more chance of their being 
 prepared for such a thing when they come to interpret 
 other people's music at the keyboard or by any other means. 
 
 Closely related to this creative work, and to the general 
 training of the ear, comes the question of the teaching of 
 Harmony. It may be asked, "How can you expect the 
 average pupil of school age to learn Harmony? Where is 
 
64 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 the time for it ? And if the time can be got, of what practical 
 use is it to him? How and where does it help him in his 
 lt other work?" These are pertinent ques- 
 
 Pu e il ^ age tions, and it is important that they should 
 Harmony De faced. First of all it is necessary to dis- 
 
 abuse our minds of one or two ideas which 
 tend to obscure the real issue. These are (a) that the object 
 of learning Harmony is to enable the pupil to " explain " every 
 combination he meets with, according to some theory; (b) that 
 the study is merely a sort of mental discipline which in 
 some vague way imparts what is called " musicianship " 
 (a term wkich is not very accurately defined by those who 
 use it). That it does, when rightly pursued, contribute 
 vitally to the growth of musicianship is true, but only under 
 certain very clear conditions. Simply to set the pupil 
 to pile up chords on paper, and to work exercises in mere 
 part-writing, the sound of which he does not hear is in the 
 nature of things foolish, and may lead to great waste of time. 
 But, surely, it is of the first importance that we should train 
 all our pupils to think in terms of Harmony as well as of 
 melody, so that, whether they are merely listening to other 
 people's performances, or are playing themselves, their 
 minds may be brought into condition for hearing what the 
 composer has written to think, for example, occasionally 
 of the bass ! by means of a right habit of mind formed in 
 their early years. It should be axiomatic that the teaching 
 and learning of Harmony should have the closest possible 
 association with matters such as these ; it should aim at 
 making the pupil listen ever more keenly to his music, at 
 rendering his whole being sensitive to the more intimate 
 and delicate beauties of it all by that very means, and at 
 training him to an appreciation of those very matters in the 
 discerning of which the more educated ear of the musician 
 differs from the blunter sensibilities of the " man in the street." 
 I need hardly say, then, that such Harmony-study, as I 
 am referring to, must be simply another and more advanced 
 form of the aural training which we have 
 been thinking of throughout our considera- 
 Aural training ^ on * tne pupil's early musical upbringing. 
 If it is not that, it is little better than useless ; 
 if it is that, its importance can hardly be over-estimated. 
 A paragraph in the recent Memorandum on Music in 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 65 
 
 Secondary Schools, issued in 1914 by the Board of Educa- 
 tion, puts the matter very well. It runs : 
 
 "It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the method of teach- 
 ing Harmony, whereby pupils are taught to resolve chords on paper 
 by eye, quite regardless of the fact that ninety-nine per cent, of 
 them do not realize the sound of the chords they are writing, is 
 musically valueless. . . . In no other language than that of 
 music would it be tolerated that the theoretical rules of grammar 
 and syntax should be so completely separated from the actual 
 literature from which they are derived, that the pupil should never 
 have perceived that there was any relation whatever between them. 
 Yet it is a common thing to find 'advanced' Harmony pupils 
 unable to pick out, in a piece of music they are playing, the key 
 transitions, a Dominant -seventh, a cadence or a suspension a. 
 state of ignorance which would only be paralleled by a sixth-form 
 pupil, familiar with all the rules of grammar and analysis, who could 
 stare blankly at a page of prose, totally unable to pick out of any 
 sentence the subject, the verb, and the object." 
 
 Now, a point to be carefully observed and pondered over 
 is that all these matters of which we are speaking concern 
 the piano-teacher just as much as they 
 
 concern the actual teacher of Harmony as ? ,", 
 1 T-V ^1 / ^ teacher and 
 
 a separate subject. Even in the case of the Harmony 
 
 child learning his little piano pieces, it should 
 be possible to stimulate the harmonic sense and arouse his 
 interest in the texture of the music, by encouraging him to 
 play cadences and other simple chord progressions for himself, 
 and to transpose them into other keys, the next step being 
 the endeavor on his part to harmonize little fragments of 
 tune at the keyboard, using at first merely the simple primary 
 chords of the key. By such means a habit of harmonic 
 listening may be developed ; moreover, the pupil will experi- 
 ence a feeling of pleasure at having done something for 
 himself that " isn't in the book." Of course, where a school 
 possesses an Aural training class and no school should 
 be without one this kind of work would follow the more 
 elementary melodic work in natural sequence ; it would 
 serve the purpose of helping the pupil to grasp with his 
 ear, and then to use for himself, the more usual and natural 
 idioms of the language he is studying the " bread and 
 butter" of his music, so to speak just as a child first 
 learns to make known his needs and his feelings in mono- 
 syllables, and, in his early attempts to read and write, makes 
 
66 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 use of the phrases and expressions which are in general cur- 
 rency around him. 
 
 And while we are on the subject of the teaching of Har- 
 mony, it would hardly be honest to omit all reference to 
 
 the difficulties (perhaps more apparent than 
 The Harmony- real) of many young teachers in face of 
 teacher and so- , , . J i ., 
 
 called "Modern the m^ and often perplexing experi- 
 Harmony" ments of the so-called " Modernists." One 
 
 is conscious of an attitude of bewilderment 
 on the part of some; the hearts of the timid are failing 
 them for fear, and the thought unexpressed, perhaps, 
 in words, but none the less insistent in many a mind 
 to-day is, " Of what use is it for me to teach my pupils Har- 
 mony when, seemingly, everything I teach them is abrogated 
 and ignored in so many of the compositions with which they 
 make acquaintance? Are they to believe me and the text- 
 books I use, or are they to pin their faith to the direct nega- 
 tion of all that I have been trying to instil into their minds ? " 
 Of course, at some future time it may conceivably be 
 necessary to revise our whole conception of the theoretical 
 and practical bases of our musical system, in order to con- 
 form to new revelations of the possibilities of the composer's 
 art. Some would say that this is necessary now, and that 
 it is impossible to square the doings of the French modernists, 
 of Scriabine and of Schonberg, with the principles of art 
 inherent in the compositions of those whom the world recog- 
 nizes as the great and acknowledged masters. That this 
 is impossible may be true, or it may not, according to your 
 point of view ; but what I should like emphatically to say 
 is that the time for casting the whole of our existing ma- 
 chinery into the " scrap-heap " is not yet. For one very 
 
 simple reason ; the experiments of such 
 Experimental writers as I have just named, beautiful as 
 
 S*?"J of y$* some may be, the reverse of beautiful as 
 
 Modernist % .,., , 
 
 Art others undoubtedly are, are still only experi- 
 
 ments; to declare that there is anything yet 
 to be seen that we can set up as providing the basis for a 
 new artistic system with qualities of permanence would be, 
 to say the least, an assumption whose temerity would be 
 only equalled by its foolishness. 
 
 So, long, then, as our teaching is in touch with that which, 
 though already recognized as established, is still a living 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 67 
 
 language, so long as it trains the learner's ear to appreciate 
 and understand the world's acknowledged masterpieces, and 
 gives him some sort of standard from which to appraise the 
 doings of newer men, it serves its chief purpose. The objec- 
 tion, sometimes seriously put forward, that the Harmony 
 professor and the Harmony book check the full-tide of orig- 
 inal thought on the part of those budding geniuses by 
 whose existence some people seem so obsessed, is surely 
 one that argues an imperfect realization of the office and 
 functions of both. The student must learn the elements 
 of his trade ; he must know how to use his tools and the 
 means by which he may avoid cutting himself therewith. 
 As soon as he has done these things the wise teacher leaves 
 him largely to himself, and tells him to read and absorb 
 all the music of all ages and countries that he can lay 
 his hands on. Rest assured that, if he has originality in 
 him, it " will out," and the elementary knowledge of the 
 rules of his art, and the degree of discipline to which he has 
 submitted, will no more check the development of his indi- 
 viduality than learning to draw straight lines will cramp 
 or hinder the artistic flights of the most ardent " impres- 
 sionist " painter. 
 
 Since it is an axiom of teaching to proceed from the simple 
 to the more complex, it holds good, as I have already said, 
 that the earlier stages of the pupil's Harmony work must be 
 concerned with making acquaintance with the more usual 
 idioms, things which are universal in their use ; and not with 
 those which are the experimental battle ground of special 
 types of writers. 
 
 Thus the time has not come when he can dispense with 
 learning about the progression of common chords and the 
 use of the Dominant-seventh ; and, if we value the impor- 
 tance of his perceiving those more " delicate impressions and 
 distinctions " of which I have already spoken, it will still be 
 necessary to place a certain curb upon his propensity due 
 to original sin, no doubt to write consecutive fifths and 
 octaves, even although they are common enough to-day 
 to make one think that the next genius will Rules 
 be he who has the daring to " keep the 
 rules ! " Of course, composers for generations past have 
 written consecutive fifths when they wanted them, and the 
 varying degree of success of such proceedings has depended 
 
68 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 upon the measure with which their result, aesthetically, 
 has justified the means. But, as Mr. F. Corder aptly says : 
 
 "The rule against consecutive fifths, like all others, is only a 
 convenient generalization, and the argument is simply absurd 
 that because any generalization we make is sometimes broken, 
 therefore it would be better to have no rules at all. In the same 
 way, one might say that because English grammar has numerous 
 exceptions, therefore grammar is useless." 
 
 If the teacher shows his pupil that all such " rules " are 
 merely " convenient generalizations," and not items in a 
 musical Decalogue, everything falls into place, and they 
 will be seen to be, not hindrances, but merely friendly guide- 
 posts to help him along an untrodden path, until such time as 
 his ear and artistic sense of fitness shall enable him to use 
 his own judgment with security. 
 
 But the pursuance of this topic further would lead me 
 into a discussion of the more thorough and formal study of 
 Harmony necessary for the specialized student, and upon 
 this (seeing that we are dealing solely with the musical 
 education of the child) I cannot enlarge here and now. 
 
 Every effort should be made to connect the young pupil's 
 
 Harmony work with his attempts at melodic invention. 
 
 This can be done with comparative ease ; 
 
 The connecting even if he gets no further than being able to 
 
 ^ih tiie Pu il's play and Wlite the cadences to the little 
 creative efforts'* tunes he has imagined, the connection will 
 have been set up, and, in all probability, 
 the matter will not end there, but lead to something more 
 extensive and important in the time to come. It may be 
 urged that, under the ordinary conditions prevailing in the 
 case of school-pupils, this kind of inventive work is not 
 possible ; the answer to this is that such work is now being 
 carried out successfully in many schools, to my own personal 
 knowledge, and I have already quoted the opinions of one 
 headmistress on the subject. The qualification must, of 
 course, be made that, in the majority of cases, such work, 
 of necessity, must be of a very simple character ; and above 
 all things it should be borne in mind that the whole aim 
 as I have already said is not to produce a race of composers, 
 but simply to awaken and render more alert the musical 
 perception of the pupil, by making use of that natural, 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 69 
 
 inherent desire to "make something," which is the preroga- 
 tive of every healthy and ordinarily intelligent child. 1 
 
 1 When the above remarks upon the cultivation of the creative faculty 
 in the child were first delivered in lecture-form, they were most ably and 
 effectively illustrated by a number of boys and girls from the Royal 
 Normal College for the Blind, by permission of the Principal, Mr. Guy 
 M. Campbell, F.R.G.S. The various items of the program are set forth 
 below : 
 
 1. (a) Improvising vocal "answers" to given phrases. 
 (6) Playing extempore "answers" to given phrases. 
 
 (c) Invention of a four-line musical stanza by four boys, each con- 
 tributing one phrase capable of being carried on by the next. 
 
 2. (a) Playing an eight-bar sentence from memory (dictated by the 
 
 teacher), and the insertion of Imperfect and Perfect Ca- 
 dences therein. 
 
 (6) Harmonizing at the piano a four-phrase melody dictated by 
 the teacher. 
 
 Playing " phrase- wise " a succession of specified harmonies. 
 
 Aural analysis of a passage of harmony. 
 
 3. Invention of a song (melody and accompaniment) to a four-line 
 
 stanza of words read by the teacher. (Four boys took part 
 in this, and were given two minutes to think out their settings 
 before playing them. Each one played and sang his version 
 of Stevenson's "Bed in Summer" without hesitation.) 
 
 4. Extemporizing a short piano piece in simple Ternary form. 
 
 5. Vocal extemporization by three girls of a melody in Ternary form, 
 
 a fourth girl harmonizing the cadences at the piano. 
 
 6. Playing an improvised accompaniment to a previously unheard 
 
 song of some considerable difficulty, dictated twice by the 
 teacher, and afterwards sung by a class to that accompani- 
 ment. 
 
 7. Examples of advanced modulation at the keyboard, and of ex- 
 
 temporization upon given themes, by the elder students. 
 
70 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 III 
 
 ANOTHER department of musical teaching, intimately 
 bound up with those that have already been considered 
 one, too, that is (or can be) of extreme value, 
 particularly in school-life, as a means of 
 extending and deepening an appreciation of 
 the more worthy things in art is that of choral singing. 
 For some years past the choral-class has existed, at least 
 in name, in most of our upper and middle-class schools; 
 it has been impressively set forth in school prospectuses 
 (sometimes as an " extra " for which a special fee has been 
 payable) ; but it is true, I think, to say that it has not 
 always been the great success that might have been hoped 
 for. Its educational value has frequently been almost 
 nil, and its use has degenerated into a forced service at some 
 school function, such as a " breaking-up," or at some local 
 bazaar, in order to add to the prevailing joyfulness of the 
 occasion ! Its place in the educational scheme has too sel- 
 dom been realized ; at times it has been given over to the 
 tender mercies of a (doubtless admirable) 
 failure^ piano-teacher who understood next-door- 
 
 to-nothing of its direction and its possi- 
 bilities, and frequently the whole thing has resulted in a 
 mechanical " drumming " of the music into the ears of girls 
 or boys who could not read half-a-dozen notes either from 
 the staff, or in Sol-fa, by means of what one might call 
 " brute force." One or two members of the class could 
 possibly read a little, and all the rest leaned and lolled upon 
 them in a spirit of helplessness and hopelessness ! 
 
 Now, in this matter of school class-singing the Elementary 
 schools have been much ahead of other schools. Of course 
 there are exceptions, but in most cases class- 
 
 s^g^g has been > and is > a department of 
 work to which much attention has been 
 given in these Elementary schools, and in a few instances it 
 has reached a standard of purity of tone, clearness of diction, 
 and beauty of expression that cannot easily be surpassed. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 71 
 
 And the surprising part of it all is as has been shown at 
 some of the Competition Festivals held in various parts of 
 the country that many of these classes have been trained, 
 not by professed musicians, but by men and women who, 
 during the rest of the week, have been teaching history, 
 arithmetic, or what not, but who have studied the require- 
 ments of singing-class direction, and have had the personality 
 necessary to dominate and hold their children. I have seen 
 and heard such classes, and the significant point is that the 
 children love their work; they respond to the music; it 
 grips them; for the time being they are living in a world 
 different from that in which their ordinary lot is cast, and 
 the effect on character and mental outlook is one that can- 
 not be ignored by any impartial judge of such matters. 
 
 What, then, are the advantages that may be claimed for 
 the well-managed singing-class? They are many; I will 
 merely mention those that are the most 
 outstanding. First, there is that of bring- 
 ing the pupils into communion with much choral-class 
 pure and beautiful music, such as is repre- 
 sented by the national tunes and folk-songs of our own 
 land and of other lands a priceless heritage and also 
 the many two-part and three-part songs written by past 
 and present composers, the study of which is a real education 
 in music. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the teacher needs to exercise 
 great care and judgment in the choice of his material, for 
 it is an unfortunate fact that very many inferior writers 
 are in the habit of turning out hundreds of silly, worthless 
 things which are not only of no value as an uplift of the 
 children's taste, but are a positive degradation of it. But, 
 given that exercise of judgment of which I have spoken, 
 the school singing-class may become in a very special sense 
 a kind of " Appreciation Class," whose importance cannot 
 well be over-rated. As a thoughtful North 
 of England teacher has said, we can by its T* 16 Choral-class 
 means " teach our children to love the best "/^|JJ S 
 music for its own sake, to sing with simple, appreciation 
 natural expression . . . and we can send 
 them away from our schools with something that is really 
 an education in the truest sense of the word, a bringing forth 
 of the best that is in them, both of heart and of voice." 
 
72 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 Secondly, that most essential matter of fluent singing at 
 
 sight, the foundation of so much that intimately concerns 
 
 . the musical advancement of the pupil, has 
 
 sight k ere an opportunity of being brought into 
 
 play, and it need hardly be said that progress 
 
 in any department of musical work must be correspondingly 
 
 slow and unintelligent where the sight-reading ability is 
 
 weak and insufficient. 1 
 
 Thirdly, the singing-class has a very distinct value in 
 the physical development of the child, for when it is con- 
 ducted on right lines he has the chance of 
 The health- learning the art of correct breathing, the 
 
 giving influence . <? i 1 1 1 , 1 i 
 
 * f tn g importance of which to health is being 
 
 Choral-class increasingly recognized at the present day. 
 
 Indeed, many medical authorities consider 
 that there are not a few ailments which may be checked, 
 if not cured, by its means. 
 
 Finally, as one has said in " Some Aims in Modern Musical 
 Education," such a class is a most powerful lever given 
 
 the right teacher " not only in the foster- 
 moral value * ng f r hythmic, corporate action, but in the 
 
 formation of character. Its influence is in 
 some degree comparable to that of the playing-field in that, 
 while personality counts, it demands, at the same time, 
 subordination to discipline in the working-out of a common 
 purpose and a common ideal. In this it is truly demo- 
 cratic, in the best sense of that much used, and much abused, 
 word." 
 
 1 While making the above assertion with the greatest possible 
 emphasis, it is necessary to remind the inexperienced teacher that, 
 especially in the case of the younger children, it would be the greatest 
 mistake to limit the choice of songs to those they could read easily 
 at sight. Some of the songs that are quite easy to sing, and well 
 within the comprehension of the youngest child, are quite difficult 
 so far as their notation is concerned. So it is important to remember 
 that, at that early stage, what is known as Rote-singing must play a 
 considerable part. There is no harm in this at all, provided that the 
 teacher has at the back of his mind all the time the paramount necessity 
 of constant endeavor to bring the standard of his pupils' sight- 
 reading up to that point where it will be a real and ever increasing 
 means of grasping readily and accurately the relation between sound 
 and symbol, a power which is at the root of all progress. 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 73 
 
 IV 
 
 WHEN we come to sum up the responsibilities of the music- 
 teacher of to-day, the fact strikes us very forcibly that 
 they are undoubtedly great, and I think that 
 the first duty of any student of music, who The Music- 
 contemplates following the teacher's career, ^unifications 
 is to consider most seriously, his qualifica- 
 tions for his task. Too often he has imagined that all that 
 is required to enable him to become a teacher is the posses- 
 sion of a respectable degree of technical skill as a player or 
 a singer, plus a certain amount of natural musicality. That, 
 he has thought, is " stock-in-trade " sufficient, for all pur- 
 poses, and he has sallied forth to his teaching duties with 
 that airy confidence which would not be devoid of humor 
 were it not so serious, and often so disastrous, in its results. 
 Now, there is a certain sense in which the difficulty of teach- 
 ing is sometimes the greater when it is taken in hand by 
 the highly gifted player, singer or composer ; it costs him 
 more effort to realize the pupil's limitations and deficiencies, 
 and thus it is that, not infrequently, the great concert-artist 
 is by no means the best teacher. He often lacks (a) the 
 experience, in his own case, of past difficulties comparable 
 in any sense with those of his pupil, (b) the analytic power 
 that enables a teacher to probe the causes of failure, to see 
 into the mind of the pupil, and to understand its working. 
 I would not have it inferred from this that the highly gifted 
 musician may permit himself to regard the career of the 
 teacher with a supreme and lofty unconcern, as something 
 beneath the notice of his artistic temperament, or to harbor 
 in his mind the no less erroneous idea that, in order to educate 
 others, it is not necessary that one's own 
 musical attainments should be more than thorough^ ' 
 well, respectable! The teacher, more and Musicianship 
 more, is being regarded as a person of vital 
 importance to the community, and in order that we may be 
 enabled to raise the whole status of this branch of our 
 
74 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 profession, it is imperative that its members shall be fully 
 equipped musicians, alert and sensitive to music themselves, 
 and sufficiently educated apart from their music to hold 
 their own with the teachers of other subjects in the field 
 of human activity. Therefore, we need the best men, 
 the best women, in the teaching profession ; not the weak- 
 lings, not the failures or the broken-down performers, or 
 those who think they will " teach music " because they can- 
 not get a living in any other way ! 
 
 The next point for us to see, is that, during the earlier 
 part of his student-life, the work of the would-be executive 
 artist and that of the would-be teacher must run along 
 parallel lines, and present the same external features. Both 
 will be learning the technique of their art, gaining all that is 
 implied in the word Musicianship, and steeping themselves 
 in an atmosphere of musical activity and comradeship. 
 And here I feel constrained to warn every music-student 
 
 TT . that one of the greatest evils to be 
 
 Unwise early f , . . ., . , . 
 
 specialization fought against dunng his student days 
 is that of a too early specialization 
 upon any one subject be if piano-playing, singing or 
 anything else. Such undue specialization inevitably tends 
 to produce narrowness of vision, one-sidedness and prejudice, 
 and a painful lack of clear judgment which usually manifests 
 itself in the inability to view things in any kind of true pro- 
 portion. Let me guard against any misconception ; I am 
 not, of course, speaking against specialization as it is seen in 
 the case of the prominent specialist-teachers of the day. 
 Such men have reached their present position by a kind of 
 natural evolution ; as a rule they are men whose general 
 musicianship has been cared for sedulously in the past, whose 
 knowledge and sympathies are wide and extensive, but whose 
 notable powers in one particular sphere have earned for 
 them a reputation which demands that the whole of their 
 time and energy, in a professional sense, shall be directed 
 into that one channel. By this means they are enabled 
 to penetrate more deeply into the technicalities and subtle- 
 ties of the particular branch of the art which they profess, 
 to the enrichment of that art and the great benefit of the 
 community. But the point is that they have built upon 
 a firm foundation ; they are musicians first, specialists 
 afterwards. Between the case of such men and that of 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 75 
 
 those students unfortunately, by no means rare 
 who habitually neglect the broader aspects of musician- 
 ship and general culture in order to give their whole 
 time to one subject, whatever that may be, there is a great 
 gulf fixed. 
 
 But during the period of preparation there must, sooner or 
 later, come a time and it is usually sooner than most people 
 care to trouble themselves about when 
 the student must decide in his own mind of t 
 what his life-work is to be ; is it to be the 
 platform, or is it to be the class-room? Now, it is a fact 
 that, as was stated in an article in the Times Educational 
 Supplement : 
 
 "The majority of students enter their colleges with the belief 
 that they are going to do anything but teach. They are going to 
 sing in opera or oratorio, become cathedral organists, or play the 
 piano or the violin to admiring audiences in every capital from 
 Petrograd to New York. It is only during their college careers, 
 or after that career is over, 1 that they discover that they are going 
 to spend . . . [their] existence in teaching." 
 
 Now, at a certain point in the education of the music 
 student, the path which he and his fellows have alike been 
 following must bifurcate, and the future training necessary 
 for the executive artist must differ somewhat materially 
 from that necessary for the teacher. The concert- 
 player, for example, need not set himself to study educational 
 principles as must the would-be teacher, and it is not of 
 the same urgency that the latter shall spend all those many 
 laborious hours in conquering technical difficulties which 
 must fall to the lot of the aspirant for platform success. 
 
 We hear to-day, on all sides, much talk and much discus- 
 sion about the training of teachers ; there has been during 
 the last few years a great awakening of the . . . 
 social consciousness to the fact that it may xeachefs 
 be desirable that a teacher, of whatever 
 subject, should be able to give some palpable evidence of 
 fitness for his task, and all through the educational world 
 at the present time this one topic holds the field. The Secre- 
 tary of the Teachers' Registration Council, speaking at an 
 educational conference recently, said : 
 
 1 The italics are the Author's. 
 
76 THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD 
 
 "It was often stated that the teacher is born, not made, but 
 this probably meant that he was greatly helped by certain quali- 
 ties of personality which enabled him to get work out of his pupils 
 and to keep them in order. Given these, it still remained neces- 
 sary for him to have a knowledge of the principles of teaching 
 and acquaintance with child nature. The born musician was not 
 necessarily a good teacher, because his mind was devoted to an 
 art other than the art of teaching." 
 
 Now, the lack of a training in teaching shows itself most 
 acutely and disastrously in the region of class-work. Over 
 f and over again, both in the Choral-class and 
 
 in the Aural training class, many an other- 
 wise sound musician has proved a complete 
 failure, or at best compares very unfavorably with those 
 who deal with subjects other than that of music. This is 
 one very real difficulty in connection with the securing of 
 the right kind of teachers for certain types of school appoint- 
 ments. Times out of number it is found that a candidate 
 for a school post is a good player, and knows the technique 
 of piano teaching fairly well, but is entirely incapable of 
 class-management; another has the requisite training and 
 personality for class-work, but is hopelessly unmusical ; 
 yet another can deal with the voice-production side of the 
 singing-class, but knows nothing of ear-training and so 
 on. It is obviously impossible for our schools, at any rate 
 the majority of them, to engage specialists in all these 
 branches, so we have here a very pressing problem waiting 
 to be solved. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the kind of teacher increasingly 
 demanded on all sides to-day is one who unites to real 
 musicianly qualities the ability to teach, which in its turn 
 connotes both the knowledge derived from a training in the 
 teaching art, and also the possession of that indefinable force 
 P alitv we ca ^ P ersona lity- A candidate in a re- 
 
 cent examination described this quality as 
 signifying the possession of " patience, charitableness and 
 all other similar virtues ! " Without requiring such an 
 extensive array of moral perfections as this, I think we must 
 see that personality means power the power to attract, 
 the power to compel, the power to sympathize and the power 
 to arouse enthusiasm. Without this, the most brilliant 
 technical achievements, the most elaborate training, will 
 
THE MUSICAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD ...77 
 
 avail but little. Given, however, its possession in fair 
 measure, the teacher, if he add the requisite degree of work- 
 manlike efficiency, may go forth conquering and to conquer. 
 As I said before, we need the best men 
 and the best women in the ranks of our The best men 
 music-teachers, men and women who ^ e ^^ 
 realize the importance of their work, Teachers 
 and are prepared to give themselves 
 whole-heartedly to the difficult, the trying, yet most worth- 
 while "task of helping others to perceive something, at least, 
 of the beauties which perchance have been revealed to them. 
 
 To every aspirant for the teacher's office I would say : 
 Remember that your pupil will not feel an enthusiasm you 
 do not feel yourself ; that you have to develop not only his 
 powers of execution, but also draw out his capacities of 
 appreciation. Do not make him a mere receptacle for 
 " items of useful knowledge," but awaken in him the desire 
 to know, help him to use his own initiative by calling upon 
 his creative and constructive faculties, and see to it that 
 your great aim shall be to make him musically observant, 
 not merely of details of execution, but of the beauties of the 
 music itself, its art and its workmanship, as his growing 
 powers of perception admit. 
 
 Remember, also, that he who is himself too proud or too 
 busy to learn is not fit to teach ; we must, to use the striking 
 expression of the great Archbishop Temple, feed our pupils 
 from " an ever-running stream," and keep constantly before 
 us, when we are tempted to relax our efforts and fall into the 
 deadly apathy of routine, the thought that we only are at 
 our best, our teaching only takes on its most inspiring form, 
 when we ourselves have seen some fresh vision of beauty 
 or of truth. 
 
The Boston Music Company Books 
 
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 4 Studies in Musical Graces . Fowles L25 
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 460 
 
 466 
 
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 52 
 
 53 
 
 Reading Exercises on Notes G. Farlane 
 
 Reading Exercises on Time 
 
 Reading Exercises on Phrasing 
 
 Elements of Music, Simply Explained Charles Trew 
 
 Handbook of Conducting C. Schroeder 
 
 Catechism of the Rudiments of Music Henry Farmer 
 
 Organ Playing: Its Technique and Expression A. Eaglefield Hull 
 
 The Child's First Steps in Pianoforte Playing Tobias Matthay 
 
 The Forearm-Rotation Principle in Pianoforte Playing 
 
 Counterpoint: Strict and Free 
 
 How to Acquire Ease of Voice Production 
 
 Living Music 
 
 Rhymes on the Rules of Harmony. 
 
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 Charles Tree 
 Herbert Antdiffe 
 Founded on Dr. Prout's Harmony 
 
 C. H. C. Knowles 
 
 350 Exercises in Harmony, Counterpoint and Modulation S. Macpherson 
 Handbook of Violin and Viola Playing C. Schroeder 
 
 Handbook of Violoncello Playing 
 Instrumentation. (Revised and Supplemented by Richard Strauss) 
 
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 Handbook for Singers Norris Croker 
 
 Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas. (Letters) Carl Reinecke 
 
 Beethoven, A Critical Biography (ill.) Vincent d'Indy 
 
 Studies in Phrasing and Form S. Macpherson 
 
 Advice to Young Musicians R. Schumann 
 
 Sidelights on Harmony Louis B. Front 
 
 Harmonic Analysis 
 Time, Rhythm and Expression 
 
 The Pianist's Handbook : Franklin Peterson 
 
 Part I, A Theoretic Companion to Practice 
 Part II, A Handbook of Musical Form 
 
 Analysis of Bach's "48 Preludes and Fugues." 2 Books, H. Riemann ea 
 Catechism of Musical Instruments. (Guide to Instrumentation) " 
 Catechism of Orchestration 
 Introduction to Playing from Score 
 
 The Voice and its Control Churchill Sibley 
 
 The Tenor Voice and its Training E. Davidson Palmer 
 
 The Boy's Voice at the Breaking Period 
 
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 56 Life of Ethelbert Nevin (ill.) Vance Thompson 2.00 
 
 57 Studies in Musical Interpretation Tobias Matthay 1.50 
 
 58 A Concise Dictionary of Musical Terms F. Niecks 1.25 
 
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 67 The Student's Handbook of Musical Knowledge " .60 
 
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 70 Harmony, its Theory and Practice Ebenezer Prout 2.00 
 
 71 Double Counterpoint and Canon 2.50 
 
 72 Harmony Simplified (also published in German and French) H. Riemann 2.00 
 
 73 Dictionary of Music 4.50 
 
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The Boston Music Company Books 
 
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 8 1 Elementary Ear-Training Fred G. Shinn 
 
 82 Rudiments of Musical Knowledge C. W. Pearce 
 
 83 Rudiments of Music for Choirs and Schools Harvey Lohr 
 Manual of Sight Singing F. J. Sawyer 
 
 84* Parti. Paper cover .50; Cloth cover .75 
 
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 Designed for use with the ' Manual of Sight Singing', 10 Parts, 
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 86 Choral Instructor for Treble Voices C. Vincent 
 
 87 New Century Pianoforte Method " 
 
 88 Practical School of Arpeggio Fingering S. Myerscough 
 8ga Harmony, Diatonic and Chromatic C. Vincent 
 89$ Key to Exercises in " Harmony, Diatonic and Chromatic " " 
 
 90 Tonality and Roots A . /. Greenish 
 
 Students' Counterpoint C. W. Pearce 
 
 Composers' Counterpoint 
 Form in Music / Humfrey Anger 
 
 91 
 
 92 
 
 93 
 94 
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 96 
 
 97 
 98 
 
 99 
 100 
 
 101 
 
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 103 
 
 104 
 
 10 5 
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 107 
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 109 
 no 
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 112 
 
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 The Reading of Music 
 
 Combined Rhythms 
 
 Musical Memory and its Cultivation 
 
 On Organ Playing 
 
 Voice Culture 
 
 Hints to Singers 
 
 300 Examination Questions 
 
 Score Reading in the Various Clefs (48 Fugues) 2 Vols. 
 
 How we Hear (A Treatise on Sound) 
 
 Vocal Exercises for Choir Boys 
 
 Practical Suggestions for Training Choir Boys 
 
 Voice Exercises for Boys 
 
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 Scales and Arpeggios 
 
 The Art of Violin Bowing 
 
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 Choir Training based on Voice Production 
 
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 The Psalms, their Structure and Musical Rendering 
 Training of Men's Voices 
 Memorizing Major and Minor Scales 
 
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The Boston Music Company Books 
 
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 114 Rudiments of Vocal Music T. L. Southgate 
 
 115 Vocal Exercises on the Old Italian System E. G. White 
 
 116 The Brass Band and how to Write for it C. Vincent 
 
 117 A History of Music E. Duncan 
 
 118 Melodies and How to Harmonize Them " 
 
 119 Key to 'Melodies and How to Harmonize -Them' " 
 
 1 20 What Music is 
 
 121 Plain-Song and Gregorian Music 
 
 122 Words in Singing 
 
 123 Organ Accompaniment to the Psalms 
 
 124 Dictionary of Organ Stops 
 
 125 Voice Training Exercises and Studies 
 
 126 The First Principles of Voice Production 
 
 127 Practical Points for Choral Singers 
 
 128 The Organist's Directory 
 
 129 The Indispensable Theory Book 
 
 130 Graded Score Reading (C and G Clefs) 
 
 131 Primer of Part-Singing, 2 Bks. 
 
 132 A Method of Teaching Harmony, 2 Bks. 
 
 133 A Short Treatise on Musical Rhythm 
 
 134 Modern Academic Counterpoint 
 
 135 Musical Appreciation, 3 pts. 
 
 136 Choir Training in Church and School H. E. Watts 
 
 137 The Composer's Vademecum F. Hejford Cocking 
 
 138 Elementary Musical Composition in 10 Lessons E. Duncan 
 
 139 The Successful Music Teacher H. Antcliffe 
 
 140 Harmonic Thought : Past and Present C. Macpherson 
 
 141 How Successfully to pass Music Examinations H. Antcliffe 
 
 142 A Cyclopaedic Dictionary of Music Ralph Dunstan 
 
 143 Elementary Ear-Training Fred G. Shinn 
 
 Bk. I. Melodic 
 
 Bk. II. Harmonic and Contrapuntal Ear-Training 
 
 144 300 Questions on the Grammar of Music J. Simpson 
 
 145 Practical Hints on Technic and Touch of Piano Playing A. Goodwin 
 
 146 Popular Handbook of Musical Information A. Pochhammer 
 
 147 The Mechanics of Piano Technic E. W. Grabill 
 
 148 Scales, their History, Theory, and Fingering on the Piano E. Brigham 
 
 149 Ear-Tests, and How to Prepare for Them O. Daugtry 
 
 150 Harmony for Amateurs /. Becker 
 
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