Mtrsic in education
musical-and often musicological-equipment, and with too much
knowledge of libraries to be regarded as a genuine novice or an in-
curable amateur who will disturb the silence of the reading room in
one of these sanctums of musical science, inadvertently irritating the
distinguished worker and breaking in upon his privacy. The new arri-
val already realizes the outstanding importance of the centre to which
he has been admitted, knows where to find what he wants in the
library’s numerous catalogues (there are as many as 13 in some spe-
cialized music libraries), appreciates the unrestricted use of the volumes
put at his disposal in the reading room, is glad to use the piano studio,
if available, for playing through pieces, and is astonished if by chance
he is refused a tlnictlm or does not immediately find what he is looking
for in a library which he has come to regard as containing an inexhaust-
ible fund of treasures of every description as well as conspicuous
rarities.
For those who are neither musicians nor musicologists the educa-
tional value of these large specialized institutions, these national repo-
sitories, is therefore in direct ratio to the richness and diversity of their
collections, and lies in the extent to which they complete and extend
the information already available to the ordinary reader in a public
music library, or in that of a university or academy of music, all more
or less accessible to non-professionals. There the average reader learns
that there is something besides Bach, Beethoven or Debussy. He ac-
quires the desire to explore beyond what he has already heard and be-
comes curious about music with which he was not familiar-old music
he did not know, contemporary music he does not yet know and which
only a very complete and varied musical collection can place at his
disposal. There he acquires a taste for unpublished work and an ad-
miration for scholarship, learns the respect due to a piece that is unique,
exceptional or rare, and the emotion with which an original manuscript
should be handled.
If knowledge is not necessarily the beginning of love, or love itself,
it always means that one loves better, wants to understand more, and
becomes more closely acquainted. The educational role of music libra-
ries is therefore gradual. The first introduction to a study of music
should take place in a popular music library. The library of a musical
academy and the department of music in a university will then provide
a firmer foundation for an education in the theory and practice of
music. So, when the adult or young person reaches the stage of the
large music library, he will be in possession of the elements he needs to
perfect the knowledge he has already acquired and to complete his