n
activity of his mentality. Seeing, hearing, knowing, is this mentality
in action. The two senses most intimately associated with artistic
activity are seeing and hearing, and these are mental. In painting,
sculpture, and architecture we perceive beauty through the eye. In music
it reaches us through the ear; but _the only thing that is cognizant is
the mind_. To man the universe consists of mental impressions, and that
these impressions differ with each individual is so well understood that
it need not be argued. Two people looking at the same picture will not
see exactly the same things. Two people listening to a musical
composition may hear quite different things and are affected in
different ways, because _it is the mind that hears_, and as no two
mentalities are precisely the same, it must be apparent that the
impressions they receive will be different. The things these mentalities
have in common they will see and hear in common, but wherein they differ
they will see and hear differently. Each will see and hear to the limit
of his experience, but no further.

To be a musician one must become conscious of that particular thing
called music. He must learn to think music. The elements of music are
rhythm, melody, harmony, and form, and their mastery is no less a mental
process than is the study of pure mathematics.

The human mind is a composite. It is made up of a large number of
faculties combined in different proportions. The germs of all knowledge
exist in some form and degree in every mind. When one faculty
predominates we say the individual has talent for that particular thing.
If the faculty is abnormally developed we say he is a genius, but all
things exist as possibilities in every mind. Nature puts no limitations
on man. Whatever his limitations, they are self imposed, nature is not a
party to the act.

Now this is what confronts the teacher whenever a student comes for a
lesson. He has before him a mentality that has been influenced not only
by its present environment, but by everything that has preceded it. "Man
is," as an old philosopher said, "a bundle of habits," and habits are
mental trends. His point of view is the product of his experience, and
it will be different from that of every one else. The work of the
teacher is training this mentality. Understanding this it will be seen
how futile would be a fixed formula for all students, and how
necessarily doomed to failure is any method of voice trai