d proficient to do his work by
himself. How much more important is it that our educators should be
competently trained. They do not have to deal with machinery, but they
do have to deal with the most wonderful of all machines--the human
brain.

Some studies in use by teachers are undeserving of their popularity,
according to my way of thinking. Some studies are altogether trivial and
quite dispensable. I have never held any particular fondness for Heller
for instance. His studies are tuneful, but they seem to me, in many
cases, weak imitations of the style of some masters such as Schumann,
Mendelssohn, etc., who may be studied with more profit. I believe that
the studies of Loeschhorn possess great pedagogical value. Loeschhorn
was a born teacher: he knew how to collect and present technical
difficulties in a manner designed to be of real assistance to the
student. The studies of Kullak are also extremely fine.

This is a subject which is far more significant than it may at first
appear. Whatever the student may choose to study after he leaves the
teacher, his work while under the teacher's direction should be focused
upon just those pieces which will be of most value to him. The teacher
should see that the course he prescribes is unified. There should be no
waste material. Some teachers are inclined to teach pieces of a
worthless order to gain the fickle interest of some pupils. They feel
that it is better to teach an operatic arrangement, no matter how
superficial, and retain the interest of the pupil, than to insist upon
what they know is really best for the pupil, and run the risk of having
the pupil go to another teacher less conscientious about making
compromises of this sort. When the teacher has come to a position where
he is obliged to permit the pupil to select his own pieces or dictate
the kind of pieces he is to be taught in order to retain his interest,
the teacher will find that he has very little influence over the pupil.
Pupils who insist upon mapping out their own careers are always
stumbling-blocks. It is far better to make it very clear to the pupil
in the first place that interference of this kind is never desirable,
and that unless the pupil has implicit confidence in the teacher's
judgment it is better to discontinue.

BRAIN TECHNIC VERSUS FINGER TECHNIC

Few pupils realize that hours and hours are wasted at the piano keyboard
doing those things which we are already able to do, and in the que