tial beat, so
that some energetic pioneer would begin without waiting for
the signal, and without incurring Schumann's wrath! Besides
this, any thorough practice, bit by bit, with his orchestra,
with instructive remarks by the way as to the mode of
execution, was impossible to this great artist, who in this
respect was a striking contrast to Mendelssohn. He would
have a piece played through, and if it did not answer to his
wishes, have it repeated. If it went no better the second or
perhaps third time, he would be extremely angry at what he
considered the clumsiness, or even the ill-will of the
players; but detailed remarks he never made.

[Footnote 4: _Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, New Edition,
Vol. IV, p. 363.]

This estimate of Schumann's work as a conductor demonstrates
unmistakably that he failed in this particular field, not because his
musical scholarship was not adequate, but because he did not have that
peculiar ability which enables one man to dominate others: _viz._, _a
sense of leadership_, or _personal magnetism_, as it is often called.
Seidl asserts[5] that Berlioz, Massenet, and Saint-Saens likewise
failed as conductors, in spite of recognized musicianship; and it is
of course well known that even Beethoven and Brahms could not conduct
their own works as well as some of their contemporaries whose names
are now almost forgotten.

[Footnote 5: Seidl, _The Music of the Modern World_, Vol. I, p. 106.]

The feeling that one has the power to cause others to do one's will
seems in most cases to be inborn, at least certain children display it
at a very early age; and it is usually the boys and girls who decide
on the playground what games shall be played next, or what mischief
shall now be entered upon, who later on become leaders in their
several fields of activity. And yet this sense of leadership, or
something closely approximating it, may also be acquired, at least to
a certain extent, by almost any one who makes a consistent and
intelligent attempt in this direction. It is this latter fact which
may encourage those of us who are not naturally as gifted along these
lines as we should like to be, and it is because of this possibility
of acquiring what in conducting amounts to an indispensable
qualification that an attempt is here made to analyze the thing called
leadership into its elements.

[Sidenote: THE FIRST ELEMENT IN LEADERSHIP]