his first piano lessons, when he was about eight years
old, from a friend of the family, Mr. Juan Buitrago, a native of
Bogota, Colombia, and an accomplished musician. Mr. Buitrago was
greatly interested in the boy, and had asked to be permitted to teach
him his notes. Their piano practice at this time was subject to
frequent interruptions; for when strict supervision was not exercised
over his work, Edward was prone to indulge at the keyboard a fondness
for composition which had developed concurrently with, and somewhat
at the expense of, his proficiency in piano technique. He was not a
prodigy, nor was he in the least precocious, though his gifts were as
evident as they were various. He was not fond of drudgery at the
keyboard, and he lacked the miraculous aptness at acquirement which
belongs to the true prodigy. He was unusual chiefly by reason of the
versatility of his gifts. His juvenile exercises in composition were
varied by an apt use of the pencil and the sketching board. He liked
to cover his music books and his exercises with drawings that showed
both the observing eye and the naturally skilful hand of the born
artist. Nor did music and drawing form a sufficient outlet for his
impulse toward expression. He scribbled a good deal in prose and
verse, and was fond of devising fairy tales, which were written not
without a hint of the imaginative faculty which seems always to have
been his possession.

He continued his lessons with Mr. Buitrago for several years, when he
was taken to a professional piano teacher, Paul Desvernine, with whom
he studied until he was fifteen. He received, too, at this time,
occasional supplementary lessons from the brilliant Venezuelan,
Teresa Carreno. When he was in his fifteenth year it was determined
that he should go abroad for a course in piano and theory at the
Paris Conservatory, and in April, 1876, accompanied by his mother, he
left America for France. He passed the competitive examination for
admission to the Conservatory, and began the Autumn term as a pupil
of Marmontel in piano and of Savard in theory and composition--having
for a fellow pupil, by the way, that most remarkable of contemporary
music-makers, Claude Debussy, whom MacDowell described as having
been, even then, a youth of erratic and non-conformist tendencies.

MacDowell's experiences at the Conservatory were not unmixed with
perplexities and embarrassment. His knowledge of French was far from
secure, and he