ave to burden
their work, of experiencing any feeling whatever when they listen to, or
perform, the composition of another. The solo players of older days were
without exception complete musicians, able to improvise and compose,
artists driven irresistibly towards art by a noble thirst for aesthetic
expression, whereas most young people who devote themselves nowadays to
solo playing have the gifts neither of hearing nor of expression, are
content to imitate the composer's expression without the power of
feeling it, and have no other sensibility than that of the fingers, no
other motor faculty than an automatism painfully acquired. Solo playing
of the present day has specialized in a finger technique which takes no
account of the faculty of mental expression. It is no longer a means, it
has become an end.

As a rule, writing is only taught to children who have reached a
thinking age, and we do not think of initiating them into the art of
elocution until they have got something to say, until their powers of
comprehension, analysis and feeling begin to show themselves. All modern
educationalists are agreed that the first step in a child's education
should be to teach him to know himself, to accustom him to life and to
awaken in him sensations, feelings and emotions, before giving him the
power of describing them. Likewise, in modern methods of teaching to
draw, the pupil is taught to see objects before painting them. In music,
unfortunately, the same rule does not hold. Young people are taught to
play the compositions of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt,
before their minds and ears can grasp these works, before they have
developed the faculty of being moved by them.

There are two physical agents by means of which we appreciate music.
These two agents are the ear as regards sound, and the whole nervous
system as regards rhythm. Experience has shown me that the training of
these two agents cannot easily be carried out simultaneously. A child
finds it difficult to appreciate at the same time a succession of notes
forming a melody and the rhythm which animates them.

Before teaching the relation which exists between sound and movement, it
is wise to undertake the independent study of each of these two
elements. Tone is evidently secondary, since it has not its origin and
model in ourselves, whereas movement is instinctive in man and therefore
primary. Therefore I begin the study of music by careful and
experimenta