Yet, at
times, we are all hazy on almost any subject, but it does not follow
that we are either fools, or badly taught: we are simply human! After
all, machines get out of order, so why not the most complicated machine
of all--the human mind?

Again, it is only the inexperienced teacher who thinks her class has
been badly taught by her predecessor. Many a student in training is
inclined, after the first lesson with a new class, to come to the
distracting conclusion that the children know 'nothing'. This generally
means that, after the holidays, the former work needs a little revision
before new work is begun.

In taking a fairly advanced class a teacher is often worried because
there is not enough time in a single forty-minute lesson a week to touch
on all of such subjects as chords, cadences, extemporizing,
transposition, &c., in addition to sight-singing and dictation. It is
certainly quite impossible to do so, and this is one of the reasons for
apparently slow progress. But there is, however, a good side to the
difficulty, for such work ought not to be hurried, and it is well to
leave a little breathing space between the references to it.

Teachers are sometimes heard to speak with regret of the high spirits of
their classes, which lead to restlessness. But we should never regret
_force_ in a child, and we must realize that all pent-up force needs a
safety-valve. It must be our business to direct such force into safe
channels. Keep the children really busy, give them plenty to do, and
there will be no cause to regret their vitality.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TEACHING OF THE PIANO

It is impossible, within the limits of a chapter, to do more than dwell
on a few practical points connected with the teaching and organization
of this work in a school. As was said in the preceding chapter, the
ideal for all young children who are about to learn the piano is that
they should first go through a short course of ear-training. If this be
done, the progress in the first year's work will be about three times
what it would otherwise be. If the ear-training be done along the lines
suggested in earlier chapters, the child will have been taught to sing
easy melodies at sight, she will have approached the question of time by
means of the French time names, she will have learned to beat time with
the proper conductor's beat, to find notes on the piano, and, what is
more important, to know these notes by sound, in relation to fi