tery of an
instrument to every one who can accomplish it. Music as taught at
present in the non-elementary schools is largely a snare and a delusion.
A few are turned out with a musicianly equipment, largely in spite of
the system rather than by its aid, but the vast majority have little
more than a smattering of musical knowledge and a mediocre standard of
executive ability as the result of years of study. But the growth of the
artistic soul is not accomplished through the fingers, and indeed it is
not infrequently strangled at birth by five-finger exercises.

[Note 3: Newlandsmith. "The Temple of Art."]

Yet we are waking up. Music already occupies an unassailable position in
our daily activities, it will presently occupy a still greater place.
Nothing is still, and least of all does Art remain fixed. The whole
world is awakening to a new standard of values, for we have at length
discovered the impossibility of running civilisation on purely
materialistic lines. The inner side of things is becoming manifest, and
a measure of spiritual insight is being vouchsafed to us: therefore all
those things which minister to the spiritual will be increased in our
regard. Of these Music is certainly not the least. "Religion, love, and
Music, are they not the three-fold expression of the same fact, the need
of expansion under which every noble soul labours?"[4] So the Art of the
future may be expected to ally itself with religion, on the side of
spirit, for the battle royal against the forces of an outworn
materialism. The end is not by any means yet, but the issue is certain:
and we ourselves to-day may play the more valiant part in the moulding
of the years to be if we realise to the full, not only what Music is and
the part it plays in life, but also the fine possibilities that lie
hidden in the future.

[Note 4: Balzac.]

CHAPTER III

THE EXPRESSION OF LIFE

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life"

_Beethoven_

If Music be a means of expression, we must needs ask ourselves what it
expresses. It is entirely insufficient to accept music as sequence or a
combination of tones that "sound nice." It would be just as reasonable
to regard a meal as something that tastes nice, whereas of course the
meal has a meaning and a use beyond mere taste: its purpose is to
sustain life, and the question of taste is merely incidental to the
larger issue. Music therefore may sound nice, but we desire to