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.

* * * * *

'Another very common result of the neglect of an aural basis for harmony
teaching is that students who can pass a difficult examination, and
write correctly by eye an advanced harmony exercise, are often quite
unable to recognize that exercise played over to them on the piano, or
even to write down the notes, apart from the time, of a hymn or a tune
that they have known all their lives.'

The whole chapter in this memorandum is well worth reading.

The final stages in the teaching of extemporization will consist in:

1. Expressing a given idea in musical form, e.g. a march, or a gavotte.

2. Extemporizing on a given theme.

Although these last stages may be thought to be beyond the power of the
average child, experience has proved that it is not so, provided the
previous work has been carefully graded, and that none of the early
steps have been omitted or hurried over.

CHAPTER X

THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION

A wise musician has drawn attention to the fact that music has a more
important educational function than any foreign language, being a common
language for the expression of emotion, imaginative power, and rhythmic
feeling. He went on to say that, as a training, it is of use from the
very earliest years, and for all classes of the community.

If we agree with this view--and it is encouraging to note the increasing
number of those who do so--we must so organize the musical education of
children that a time comes when they will be ready to 'express
themselves' in music in the same way in which they can express
themselves in their native tongue.

An earlier chapter in this book has dealt with the teaching of
extemporizing, first, treated as vocal expression, then as instrumental.
When a class of children has arrived at the stage of being able to
extemporize a tune of sixteen bars, in any given key and time, and
introducing given modulations, it is quite ready to begin the more
formal study of composition, and to be initiated into the mysteries of
form. Hitherto the experiments of the class in thi