nt
effort to arouse the correct mental and emotional attitude toward each
individual song every time it is sung.

[Sidenote: DIRECTING OLDER CHILDREN]

In teaching a class of older children, it is well for the supervisor
to stand at the front of the room with baton in hand, giving the
conventional signals for attack and release and beating time in the
usual way during at least a part of each song in order that the
children may become accustomed to following a conductor's beat. It is
not necessary to beat time constantly, and the teacher, after giving
the signal for the attack and setting the tempo, may lower the baton,
until a _fermata_, or a _ritardando_, or the final tone of the song
makes its use necessary again.

A word of warning should perhaps be inserted at this point against
tapping with the baton, counting aloud, beating time with the foot,
_et cetera_, on the teacher's part. These various activities may
occasionally be necessary, in order to prevent dragging, to change the
tempo, to get a clear and incisive rhythmic response in a certain
passage, _et cetera_; but their habitual employment is not only
exceedingly inartistic, but is positively injurious to the rhythmic
sense of the children, because it takes away from them the opportunity
(or rather necessity) of each one making his own individual muscular
response to the rhythm of the music. The more responsibility the
teacher takes, the less the pupils will assume, and in this way they
are deprived of the practice which they need in working out the rhythm
for themselves, the result often being that a group of children get to
the point where they cannot "keep time" at all unless some one counts
aloud or pounds the desk with a ruler as an accompaniment to their
singing.

[Sidenote: THE SELECTION OF MUSIC FOR GRADE CHILDREN]

A very large element in the success of all public performances is the
selection of just the right type of music. In the case of small
children, unison songs with attractive music and childlike texts
should be chosen. When the children are somewhat older (from eight or
nine to twelve) longer and more elaborate unison songs provided with
musicianly accompaniments may be selected, while rounds and
unaccompanied part songs are effective by way of contrast. In the case
of upper-grade children, part songs (sometimes even with a bass part,
if there are enough changed voices to carry it successfully) are best.
But it should be noted that the