ight way of doing things which are
worthy of the heart, gives power and good. It is the wrong way of
doing things that causes us trouble. Some studies demand exactness
above all this,--like the study of Arithmetic--others a good
memory,--like History--others tax many faculties, as we have seen in
our Talk about School Music.

Some of the studies are particularly valuable to us at once because
they make us _do_. They may be called _doing_ studies. In Arithmetic
there is a result, and only one result, to be sought. In Grammar every
rule we learn is to be applied in our speech. Manual training demands
judgment and the careful use of the hands. Penmanship is a test for
the hand, but History is a study touching the memory more than the
doing faculty.

School music, you see at once, is a doing study. Not only that, it is
full of life, attractive, appealing to the thoughts in many ways, and
yet it is a hearty study--by that I mean a study for the heart.

If you have noticed in your piano music the Italian words which are
given at the beginning of compositions, you may have thought how
expressive most of them are of the heart and of action. They are
_doing_ words particularly. _Allegro_ is cheerful; that is its true
meaning. It directs us to make the music sound cheerful as we sing it
or play it. What for? So that the cheerfulness of the composer shall
be for us and for other people. And _Vivace_ is not merely quickly,
but vivaciously. Now what does vivacious mean? It means what its
root-word _vivere_ means, to live. It is a direction that the music
must be full of life; and the true life of happiness and freedom from
care is meant. So with _Modcrato_, a doing word which tells us very
particularly how to do; namely, not too fast, spoiling it by haste,
nor too slowly, so that it seems to drag, but in a particular way,
that is, with moderation.

Music takes its place as a _doing_ study; and as we have already
discovered, its doing is of many kinds, all requiring care. Singing or
playing is doing; reading the notes is doing; studying out the
composer's meaning is doing; making others feel it is doing;
everything is doing; and _doing_ is true living, _provided it is
unselfish_.

Let us see if there is not a simple lesson in all this. To seek it we
shall have to say old thoughts over again. Music itself uses the same
tones over and over again; it is by doing so that we begin to
understand tone a little.

The school studies