, because he could taste the brass
in his soup. Charles Lamb, in his chapter on "Ears," remarked, that
while a carpenter's hammer, on a warm summer day, caused him to "fret
into more than midsummer madness," these unconnected sounds were nothing
when compared with the measured malice of music. For while the ear may
be passive to the strokes of a hammer, and even endure them with some
degree of equanimity, to music it cannot be passive. The noted author
relates having sat through an Italian opera, till, from sheer pain, he
rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace
himself with sounds which he was not obliged to follow, and thus get rid
of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!
According to his frank avowal, music was to him a source of pain, rather
than of pleasure.

The Reverend Richard Eastcott, in his "Sketches of the Origin, Progress
and Effects of Music," told of a "gentleman of very considerable
understanding," who was heard to declare that the rattling of a fire-pan
and tongs was as grateful to his feelings as the best concert he ever
heard. However, such rare exceptions, if not germane to our subject, may
be said to prove the general rule that music is of real value in
therapeutics, and that most people are susceptible to its beneficent
influences.

Music has accomplished a great many things and has been put to many
uses, but it is seldom employed in making good boys out of bad.

An almost accidental experiment at the Middlesex County truant school
at North Chelmsford has shown it to be a truth, that wickedness takes
flight at martial strains; for a full-fledged brass band, in which the
delinquent youths are the musicians, has fairly revolutionized the
discipline of the school, and many a lad who did not have half a chance
has been started "right" on the road to success.

The question is often asked: How can music effect a
character-metamorphosis in the boy who has every mental and moral
indication of turning out badly?

Music is an educative factor of prime importance, and promotes the
evolution of good hereditary traits. Whatever the psychologic
explanation of its effects may be, it appears to develop the qualities
of kindness and manliness.[187:1]

Not every one, however, is influenced by the foregoing considerations. A
recent writer, in an essay on the "Plague of Music," remarks that under
the name of music we are afflicted with every variety of noi