1. I'm but a stranger here, Heaven is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home. 2. What tho' the tempest rage, Heaven is my home; Short is my pilgrimage, Heaven is my home. 3. There at my Saviour's side, Heaven is my home; I shall be glor-i-fied, Heaven is my home. WE shall make very little progress in teaching | music in public schools so long as we confine ourselves to the discussion of such questions as whether or not we shall use the Fixed Do system, the Movable Do system, the Tonic Sol-fa system, or the Buckwheatnote system, or whether we shall attempt to teach music to little children as musicians have learned it, through the playing of musical instruments. However we may differ upon these much-discussed questions, which are of minor importance, there should be no question regarding the fundamental principles of teaching. There are mental laws underlying the growth and development of the mind, which are as fixed and immovable as the eternal hills, and when we shape our methods of teaching so as to present this subject to the mind in accordance with these laws, the confusion in musical notations, and the difference in opinion arising from our ignorance in teaching this subject, will disappear. The very name of objective teaching suggests that there must first be an object to be presented to the mind; we must have a unit of thought or a real object to teach. The first problem, therefore, will be to decide upon our unit in music. What is it? We have said that little children first learn to sing as they first learn to talk, by imitation, and that the unit or object of thought is the little exercise or song as a whole. Thus we present to the mind our units in music by teaching our pupils to sing these little exercises and songs beautifully, and then showing them the representation in notes. Thus we train the eye to recognize in notes the succession of sounds which has been taught to the ear. This is philosophic and sound teaching while viewing the subject from the standpoint of regarding the unit to be the exercise or song as a whole. But is not this rote singing? The tendency of such a system of instruction is to make musical imitators instead of intelligent thinkers in music, while success in teaching it must depend largely upon the skill and proficiency of the teacher as an expert in singing. If such a system of instruction be called a system of rote singing it is rightly named, notwithstanding the pupils learn to apply the syllables to the notes of the exercises and songs learned, and notwithstanding both teachers and pupils deceive themselves by supposing that they are reading music. Taught by such a system, little children will appear to the casual observer to be very proficient; they can sing their exercises and songs by rote beautifully, but when tested with a succession of sounds which they have never heard they are found to be very helpless. If the object be simply to teach children to sing beautifully on public occasions, and musical experts can be employed to teach the children, a good temporary effect may be produced, but it should not pass for real education in music. When we compare the application of the objective principle in teaching music, as here stated, with the same principle as applied by the best educators in teaching language, we find this difference: In language a single word may represent a unit or object of thought, while in music a single sound means nothing, and cannot be taught by itself.-H. E. Holt. |