It is hard to get back on the right lines, once these wrong ideas have
gained a foothold and the temptation is strong to turn over to com-
mented gramophone music and passive attendance at school concerts.
At this stage there is nothing to ensure that the children’s minds are
engaged, for they lack the basic knowledge to grasp musical forms.
Stripped of its educational impact, music loses its point as a subject to
be taught in the course of general education.
It may therefore be affirmed that singing is the best form of activity
to achieve the desired end and that instruments and mechanical music,
because of their lack of disciplinary power over most pupils, play only
an auxiliary part.
To awaken the creativepowers. Music, poetry and rhythmic dancing form
the rhythmic group of the arts whoseinfluence on manis so mysterious.
They are able at the same time to rouse him to an ecstasy in which the
intellect has no place and to impose on him the discipline of the laws
of mathematics. They do not add anything to the general sum of our
knowledge but they give a new temper to the whole.
Music, particularly singing, awakens creative impulses in the mind
which drive it to seek new channels of self-expression. Thus singing
tones the will and the imagination, and mental activity is thereby
reinvigorated.
To elevate the emotions. Music acts directly on the emotions and has an
intimate connexion with the physical or psychical stimuli of the
affections.
Feeling, being dependent on these stimuli, is neutral from the point
of view of moral value. But music, like all the arts, has the happy
property of making the good lovable through beauty. It can open
hearts and awaken an interest in certain subjects to which children
would otherwise be indifferent. It can lend attraction to ideas which
the minds of children are not yet capable of grasping in the form of
abstract truths.
People are attracted by what they love, and love means action. With
the drive of the emotions behind it, music can likewise become a potent
ferment of the will.
The enlightened teacher will find in music, and most of all in singing,
a key to the inner soul of the child and a means of fixing his attention
on spiritual values. Singing will help him to make his pupils aware of
their good intentions and courageous decisions.