and acquire the music-reproducing apparatus.

Another thing that can be done is to get together all the people in the
community that can play on any kind of instrument, and make them play
together. Do not despise the day of small things. There must be a
beginning. It will not be long before we can do more in any village, and
at last we can have music of a higher order to drive the ills of
isolation out of our atmosphere and introduce a healthful harmony in
their place. If a boy belonged to an orchestra that met on Monday and
Friday evenings for practise, to a class in voice on Tuesday evening,
and had engagements with groups of young men and young women to train
for concerts all the other evenings of the week and was to sing in the
church choir on Sunday, is it possible that he would feel that he could
be spared to go away to the city to live? The case of the Country Girl
will be exactly parallel. Her voice is the leading voice in the
quartette; she is necessary to the musical atmosphere of the village;
she is the hostess everywhere; she cannot be spared from any village and
country life that is full of musical and other social engagements. And
among the influences that beneficently endow human beings, the one that
is at once most welding, most unifying, and most delighting is music.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PLAY IN THE HOME

O little bulb, uncouth
Rugged, and rusty brown,
Have you some dew of youth?
Have you a crimson crown?
Plant me and see
What I shall be--
God's fine surprise
Before your eyes!

--_M. D. Babcock._

CHAPTER XXV

THE PLAY IN THE HOME

The development of musical taste and the power to enjoy the works of the
great composers is closely akin to the ability to appreciate the sister
art of the drama. The art that has grown out of that imitative impulse,
which is so deeply implanted in human nature and has reached such
heights in the hands of genius, has modest stages of growth that may be
seen in the daily programs of the home, the school, the playground, in
all the walks of children and of grown people. To be able to tell a
story, and show it up with a little dramatic imitation, is to add to the
success of the social queen, the drummer, the one who influences and
manages men or women in any field. There are people who think it well
worth while to spend much time in the study of the art of expression,
just to add to their powers of entertainment w