If the work bores the mother it is not
surprising that the child attacks it with mind fixed on metal more
attractive and eyes seeking the clock. Occupations which are repellent
in early life leave behind them a memory calculated to render them
forever distasteful. It is therefore a grave mistake not to make music
study from the outset throb with vital interest. An appeal to the
intellect will quicken the aesthetic instincts, be they never so slender,
and almost any one will love work that engages all the faculties.
Those pupils are fortunate who come under the influence of a teacher
with strong, well-balanced personality and ripe knowledge, and are
treated as rational beings, capable of feeling, thinking and acting. Too
many music teachers learn their business by experimenting on beginners.
It has been suggested as a safeguard against their blunders, and all
ignorance, carelessness and imposture, that music might be placed under
the same legal protection accorded other important factors in social
life, and that no one be permitted to teach it without a license granted
by a competent board of judges after the applicant had passed a
successful examination, theoretical and practical.
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