city child quickly has to learn to look after himself, and
to make his own decisions on the spur of the moment, and consequently
his mental processes are more fluent than those of the bumpkin type. But
anything that can be done to accelerate this reaction time is so much
added to the efficiency of the individual. Sight-reading, we believe,
possesses a special value in this direction. Singing at sight is also a
means of developing the co-ordination of the various faculties. There
are numbers of people who know things ought to be done, and yet fail to
do them. In the case of sight-singing, the mental picture has to be
immediately translated into action, it is the essence of the proceeding.
The child is thus developing not only the mental faculties, but is also
acquiring increased power of regulation and co-ordination, through the
training of the faculties of the cerebellum.

It is now becoming generally recognised that the interest of the young
in music may be expressed in intellectual and emotional enjoyment, and
not only instrumentally and vocally. In other words we realise that good
listeners and appreciative understanders of music are, in their way, as
essential as executants. "Shocking as it may seem, hundreds of children
'learn music' for the length of their school life and never hear a
masterpiece, and indeed, hear no music at all except such as their own
untrained musical sense and half-trained fingers can compass."[21] In
increasing measure the teaching of music appreciation is coming into
vogue, and as an aid to this the piano-player and gramophone are
demonstrating their value. The slogan of the musical advance guard is "a
gramophone in every school." Teachers who are competent to give
first-class expositions of the classics in schools are naturally few and
far between, and it would be impossible for even the first-class, with
the best will in the world, to cover a range in any way commensurate
with that which can be reached mechanically. Therefore the mechanical
piano-player with a constant change of rolls, and the gramophone with
its ever-increasing list of records, are adjuncts to education which are
at present only in the stage of small beginnings. They possess
drawbacks and disadvantages, of course, but these are far outweighed by
the many solid points that tell in their favour.

[Note 21: Percy Scholes. "Everyman and his Music."]

The standard of musical accomplishment to be found in the various
school