There is sweet music here that softer falls —TENNYSON The soul of music slumbers in the shell, -ROGERS FOREWORD The world's a very happy place, -SETOUN T gives me sincere pleasure to coöperate with those who are bringing to little children in the public schools of our country, opportunities to hear the great music of the world. It is a well-known fact that music makes its deepest impression in the early years of childhood. While the capacity of little children for listening to music is limited, those who know how to find good music which will make a genuine appeal at this period in the child's development are rewarded by an appreciation which is well worth the effort. In the period of early childhood the ear is easily trained and neglect at this time can never be fully made up by any amount of musical education in later years. One of the very best opportunities to develop music appreciation with young children is through their interest in interpreting the appeal of music through motion. At this period in their development children have a singular freedom and confidence in creating their own interpretations through motions and steps that in later childhood seems to disappear. If this confidence and creativity are taken advantage of at the right period, the effect becomes lasting, and a real contribution is made to their musical education for all time. Unfortunately, a large number of musicians, or supervisors of music in public schools, overlook these very impressionable years and provide little in the way of training for the kindergartens and the first grades. Through the efforts of Mrs. Frances Clark and others interested in the education of the young child, children of to-day may have an opportunity to come in contact with the very best music that the world has ever produced. Those who are willing to search diligently to discover music suitable for children will not only contribute to the child's present development, but will lay the foundation of music appreciation which will make all life more beautiful and enjoyable. I send my very best wishes to the effort which this little book represents, as Mrs. Clark has given untold time in searching for the best that music can provide in the education of the children in our public schools. PROFESSOR PATTY S. HILL Director of Lower Primary Education (Kindergarten-Primary), PREFACE HE unprecedented increased interest in the study of music appreciation as a cultural subject singularly well adapted to a broadly democratic presentation of the art of music, which has been proved to be a universal human need, is rooted in the development of the modern talking machine and records. Until the Victor began its service to the needs of the schools and brought all the music of all the world to all the children, no one ever dreamed of teaching music appreciation to the children of the grades; and very few, if any, had made any headway in the high schools. As the work has progressed, the ecstasy which even very little children have shown in listening just to listen and listening to learn has electrified many older hearts and galvanized into action hundreds of educators. In the beginning of this new use of music, it seemed quite enough that the children should march more orderly, play games to real music instead of monotonously chanting some nondescript tune unaccompanied, and semi-occasionally hear a few selections of truly great music. This is no longer adequate, nor, indeed, is such desultory playing of a few records to be called "music study" or "music appreciation." If America is ever to become a great nation musically, as she has become commercially and politically, it must come through educating everybody to know and love good music. This can only come about by beginning with the children, little children, at the mother's knee and on the kindergarten circle, and so surrounding them with beauti ful music that it becomes a vital part of education, development, and life, instead of the autumn flowering of a stunted, undeveloped, sterile bud, to be seen in a frantic grasping at "music culture" in later life. Millions of dollars are spent each season in madly rushing to concert and opera in a vain effort to make up for the awful deprivations of silent early childhood, where the proper music was seldom heard and never understood. Thousands of people pathetically try to "hear" a symphony or tone poem, but only succeed in becoming vastly wearied by a mass of, what is to them, only incoherent cacophony. Having ears they are yet unable to hear because those ears missed definite training in childhood. The tone-picture falls on empty canvas, because there is no imagery rising out of a rich experience in full-fed imaginings of scenes, atmospheres, moods, painted on memory's walls by countless other former stimuli of pictures in tones. The language of Eliot's Indian Bible or the tongues of Babel's Tower are not more lost to the world than is the language of music to the unfortunate millions of Americans who have grown to manhood and womanhood deprived by circumstances from hearing it during the tender years of youth. These conditions are no longer tolerable in the light of the present educational awakening. If music is an educational factor, an individual and community asset, then it should be given its rightful place in the curriculum of our lower schools and kindergartens, no less than, indeed much more than, in the high school and college, where it has won a foothold, precarious because of this very lack of foundational work in the elementary schools. Because we believe that, next to reading and writing, music is the greatest single factor in educational processes, |