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daily life that we cannot do without our 'average performers'. The
soldier marches best to a tune, the sailor heaves his anchor to a song,
the ritual of all forms of religion needs the aid of music; we need it,
not only in the pageantry of our processions, but in the solemn crises
of life and death. For these purposes artists of the first rank are not
necessary.

Every child, however apparently unmusical, should be given its chance,
at any rate up to the age of twelve years. During this time, the stress
should be placed, for the unmusical child, not so much on perfection of
technique, but on the ability of playing easy pieces really well, and to
read at sight such things as duets, song accompaniments, &c.

If, in addition, the children have joined an ear-training class, they
will, at any rate, be intelligent listeners for the rest of their lives
to other people's playing.

For all children, sight reading should form part, not only of every
lesson, but of every day's practice. Many books for sight reading have
been published, well graded, some of them beginning with little pieces
in the treble clef only, and going on to advanced tests. The following
are a few, selected from many other excellent ones:

Schaefer (3 vols., published by Augener).

Hilliard (5 vols., published by Weekes).

Somervell (2 vols., published by Augener and Weekes respectively).

Taylor (1 vol., published by Bosworth).

As a child will need more than one such book in the course of her study,
and as she cannot play the same test twice, a plan has been made in some
schools for the music to be sold second-hand from one pupil to another,
through the medium of a mistress, in the same way in which ordinary
school books are sometimes passed on. This reduces the expense of
constantly having to buy new books for sight reading. Another plan is to
establish a lending library, each child to pay 2_d._ or 3_d._ a term.

In the teaching of 'pieces' music mistresses should bear in mind that
children must, from time to time, revise those which they have finished.
Nothing is more irritating to a parent than to be told by a child that
it has 'nothing to play' to a visitor. The mistress who is anxious to
get a pupil on as quickly as possible often overlooks this point, and an
entirely wrong impression is given of the child's progress to the
parent.

We now come to the vexed question of the interpretation of music by
children. An interesting point can be n