understand,
but can repeat without difficulty a long series of words of which he
understands the sense. Indeed, the importance of many of these exercises
becomes clearer when the way in which children are taught to read and
write is remembered.

[1] _Realize_ is used in rhythmic gymnastics in the
sense _express by movements of the body_.

Oral and visual images of letters and words are impressed on the child
by reading aloud, and in this way the young brain easily masters the
difficult work of reading and writing. The Jaques-Dalcroze method
proceeds in exactly the same manner as regards the elements of music.

When we have once realized this point, we are bound to wonder why music
teaching has not always been based on this elementary and unfailing
form. What would be said to teachers who tried to teach children to read
and write without letting them spell and read aloud? But this is what
has often been done in the teaching of music, and if children generally
show but little pleasure and interest in their first music lessons, the
fault does not lie with them but with our wrong method of making the
elements clear to them.

As a matter of fact we generally do not make the latter clear to them,
and fail in the most important duty of the educator and teacher, namely,
that of making the child really experience what he is to learn.

[Sidenote: =DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL RESPONSE=]

A rhythm in music consists of a regularly recurring series of accented
sounds, unaccented sounds, and rests, expressed in rhythmic gymnastics
by movements and inhibitions of movements. Individuals who are
rhythmically uncertain generally have a muscular system which is
irregularly responsive to mental stimuli; the response may be too rapid
or too slow; in either case impulse or inhibition falls at the wrong
moment, the change of movement is not made to time, and the physical
expression of the rhythm is blurred.

Although feeling for rhythm is more or less latent in us all and can be
developed, few have it naturally perfect. The method has many exercises
which are of use in this connexion. By means of these the pupil is
taught how to arrest movement suddenly or slowly, to move alternately
forwards or backwards, to spring at a given signal, to lie down or stand
up in the exact time of a bar of music--in each case with a minimum of
muscular effort and without for a moment losing the feeling for each
time-unit of the music.

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