The traitiitig of the teacherof teachers to fill the posts available, especially in the more isolated
rural areas.
We also apply the term ‘specialist’ to teachers who have no specific
musical qualifications, whether in the shape of degree, diploma, or
teachers’ training college course, but who for one reason or another
have agreed to take charge of much, if not all, the music teaching in a
school. Some will have stepped into this position because they are
keen and interested; others will have undertaken the task with difli-
dence, because there is no-one else willing to attempt it. To paraphrase
Shakespeare, ‘some are born specialists, some achieve specialization,
and some have specialization thrust upon them’. Strictly speaking,
these people are amateurs in music. Some are highly gifted amateurs,
with musical interests outside the school, and most of them will have
valuable experience of taking part in music in their school days, in
training coIIeges, or at the university. Nearly all will be trained teachers,
and some will be among the elite of their profession with resources of
energy, taste, freshness and teaching skill that are the envy of their
colleagues. Many a secondary school owes a vigorous music life to a
man or woman on its staff who is a graduate in English, French,
history, science, mathematics-in anything but music.
The grammar school or public school music specialist, into which-
ever category he comes, has a heavy responsibility to bear. Nearly all
the future teachers and educational administrators pass through the
grammar school or the independent ‘public’ school; so do most of the
future artists. The music specialist must therefore possess a strong
combination of qualities. He must be a person of wide general culture
and intellectual distinction if he is to meet successfully the challenge of
his ablest pupils and his colleagues on the staff; he must have consider-
able practical skill in at least one direction-conducting, singing, playing
an instrument; he must have scholarship adequate for preparing spe-
cialist pupils for external examinations and perhaps for entrance to
departments of music in the universities. Above all, he must have the
breadth of vision and human sympathy that will enable him to make
music a powerful social and moral discipline in the school he serves.
Much of his most valuable work will be done outside the classroom;
in the independent boarding school a vigorous musical life is often
maintained entirely through voluntary activities outside class hours,
and even in the day grammar schools, where class singing, score
following and so on, generally form part of the normal curriculum,
there will probably be rehearsals of orchestras, choirs and chamber
music groups during the lunch hour, at the end of afternoon school,