n. Purely mechanical
work has gone, never, we may hope, to return: and meaningless music is
discarded in favour of that which expresses something. It may illustrate
a mood or an emotion, a scene, an action, or a fairy tale--it matters
not what so long as it possesses a meaning to lend it point and purpose.
So right from the beginning the action of the pupil will be the
expression of the emotions and ideas that hold sway in his mind.

In this connection we may quote an actual instance. A teacher
writes:--"A young pupil (age 14) came for a lesson, playing Farjeon's
'Prelude and Pavane.' She had learnt the 'Prelude,' and had had one
lesson, a fortnight before, on the 'Pavane.' We went through the
technique, and I told her a little about the 'Pavane'--when it was
danced, the derivation of the name, and so on. When she played it, she
played it very, very slowly, but quite correctly and finished in detail.
I asked her if she liked it quite as slowly as that, and she replied
that she thought 'the Court ladies with their long dresses would not be
able to dance any quicker' and that it 'sounded grander very slowly.' So
I left it." This, we may add, is an illustration of method quoted by a
teacher in a diploma Examination paper, but it aptly shows the new
spirit. The teacher had no mind to force her own views upon the pupil.
Had she insisted that the dance should be played more quickly, she might
have spoiled the child's mental picture and destroyed her interest in
the piece. The incident also points the way in which the pupil's
observation, imagination, and powers of deduction were being stimulated,
so that, as we have been endeavouring to show, the music--of value for
its own sake--was also ministering to the larger end of life-growth.

The world of affairs and the world of education see to it that our
intellect and will are duly and properly brushed up, they exact their
penalties in default from the stupid and the invertebrate, but the
feeling and emotional side of the nature is too often ignored. It is
left to develop by chance instead of being nurtured by design. As a
consequence a vast amount of distorted feeling exists in the world, and
a very great deal of emotion is repressed. Music is at once a means of
cultivating the rightful feelings towards life, and an outlet for the
repressed emotions. The interpreter recognises that his true function is
to serve his day and his generation, and so he places this ideal of
Service