it struggles to interpret and evolve. There is no
instinct which is so deeply seated as the musical. It is possible for
a child, it is possible for a whole class of children, to sing out of
the depths of the soul; and when this happens we may be sure that a
fountain of spiritual joy has been unsealed, and that a great and
sacred mystery has been unveiled. There is a school in one of the
poorest slums of a large town, in which, some two or three years ago,
the children were taught to sing, and the teachers to teach singing,
by an inspired "master" who believes that to lift the sluices of
spiritual feeling is to quicken into ever-increasing activity its
hidden springs; and neither the teachers nor the children have yet
forgotten their lesson. The children are poor, pale, thin, unkempt,
ill-clad, unlovely; but I am told that when they sing their faces are
transfigured, and they all become beautiful.

Egeria is an accomplished musician, and though Utopia belongs to one
of the unmusical counties of England, she has found it easy to awaken
the musical instinct in the hearts of its children. A few years ago
she introduced the old English Folk Songs and Morris Dances into the
school. The children took to them at once as ducklings take to the
water; and within a year they were able to give an admirably
successful performance of some two dozen songs and dances in the
village hall. Some of these had been rehearsed only once; but the
children, thanks to their having been systematically trained to
educate themselves, are so versatile and resourceful that every item
on their programme was a complete success. The Folk Songs and Morris
Dances are still the delight of the children. They are ever adding to
their repertory of songs; and when they go into the playground for
recreation, they at once form into small groups for Morris Dancing,
the older children taking the little ones in hand, and initiating
them into the pleasures of rhythmical movement.

There is another way in which Egeria brings music into the lives of
the children. In her own words, she "sets many of their lessons to
music." For example, when they are doing needlework or drawing or any
other quiet lesson, she plays high-class music to them, which forms a
background to their efforts and their thoughts, and which gradually
weaves itself, on the one hand into the outward and visible work that
they are doing, and on the other hand into the mysterious tissue of
their inward