etc., 148; printing, 144; metal, 95 ; building, 83 ; carpenters and joiners, 82 ; various factories, 65 ; railway, 63 ; tailors and dressmakers, 61 ; insurance, 59 ; postmen, trams, police, 58 ; potters, 57 ; boot, shoe and leather, 52; warehousemen, 47 ; laborers, 51 ; foremen and managers, 26; food, 25; bookbinders, 9 ; miscellaneous, 234. The courses run from one to three years and the cost per session is only two shillings and six pence. The interest in music is said to be very remarkable, and the seriousness of the work excludes frivolous applicants. Of course, study under such conditions implies that the worker must do a great deal for himself. But, as we have said, time and again, all study is of value in proportion to the effort of the individual student. Match some of the rich men's sons who wriggle languidly through Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, against the struggling young men of some of the lesser known colleges, and you will soon find who will lead in the race. Ohio Northern University has contributed several Governors to its State, and yet this is a college where the greater number of young men and women work their way through. It really does not make so much difference how you get your education—the main thing is to get as good a one as possible and work hard for it. Many a fine one has been ac-quired without the shadow of a university. Think of Wagner, Lincoln, Shakespeare, Edison. Chances for the so-called masses in musical education are increasing every day. If you, who read this, are a worker, know that if you will only make a start and determine to work hard in your spare hours you may, even when working alone, do more and better work than hundreds of rich men's children who have thousands of dollars thrown away on expensive teachers. Clearing Up Confused Pedaling THER E is no need for great confusion, however, over the matter of the pedals. There is great need for pedal drill. The student who thinks that he can get off without this is making a great mistake. He will need quite as much foot drill as he will need finger drill, if he expects to be a great artist. The pedal is the color palette of the piano. Mark Hambourg some years ago gave his opinions on the pedal in the following very succinct manner: I. Pedal no two harmonies with the same pedal continued. II. Pedal no two phrases with the same pedal continued. III. Pedal long melodic notes in phrases, but do not introduce the pedal in the middle of a phrase or at the end, unless you can give a good artistic reason for so doing. IV. Pedal with judgment when approaching the climax of a piece. V. Pedal by pressing down the foot after a long melodic note has been struck. This often avoids the blur caused by putting down the pedal and the note at the same time. Of course, all the foregoing remarks refer to the damper pedal or, as it is sometimes called, the "loud pedal." Chamber Music Festivals FRO M time to time TH E ETUD E has given small notices in its "World of Music" department relating to the annual cham-ber music festivals held in Massachusetts through the benefac-tions of Mrs. F. S. Coolidge. Mrs. Coolidge is the donor of the festivals, the hall in which they are held and the prizes for which exciting contests are waged. The first prize this year was won by Ernest Bloch, the Swiss composer, and the second was car-ried off by Miss Rebecca Clarke, an English woman composer, who nearly succeeded in defeating as renowned a master as Bloch for the $1,000 prize offered for the best chambermusic composition. The whole plan is one of lofty idealism and de-serves the enthusiastic interest of all American music-lovers. Some one has said that chamber music concerts must have pri-vate assistance. This has been true in all but a few instances. Some of the quartets have made money. The Kneisel, the Flon-zaley and others have had numerous successful concerts and other quartets such as the Zoellner quartet have been popular success entirely without subsidies. Rotate Your Studies HAV E you ever had a music lesson from a really fine teach* r made dull and stupid because that teacher has been so inocuUn.i with the bacillus of system, that every lesson was as like anoth« r lesson as it was biologically possible for the teacher's brain * 1 make it. There is a great principle of rotation that seems to affect all things, even the spheres in the firmament. Students of all people need constant, but well administered change, precisely crops need rotation. If the student has been studying a sonatina by Clementi, when that sonatina is mastered the work should be rotated so that something very different indeed will follow it. If the student has had a series of scales, follow them with in-teresting pieces of the chord type. Part of the work of the International Harvester Company Extension Department, under the direction of Dr. P. G. Holden, has been to issue pamphlets in enormous editions designed to remedy educational conditions in various parts of the country, particularly in rural districts. One circular, for instance, is designed to help in raising the salaries of teachers. Another is devoted to this important subject of rotation in education. Here are some extracts: "I t has been clearly demonstrated in many districts, especially in Missouri, that children are more interested—teachers' work is more vital—and the entire com-munity is vitalized educationally, industrially and socially, by rotation of subjects." Codfish and Fox Terriers HER E is an idea—a comparison—that is worth more than money to the student, the music lover, the teacher, who can make use of it by practical application. The first and greatest essential in learning anything is attention. Without concen-trated attention all learning halts and stumbles. Once atten-tion is assured, the path to knowledge is blazed, and progress becomes possible. How can we cultivate attention? How can we make our-selves more continuously attentive? Some psychologists have insisted that it is literally impossible to concentrate the mind upon any one thing for more than a very short time. They tell us that we may be acutely attentive for a few seconds, but then the truant mind will wander off on thought excursions in all manner of directions. W e are then supposed to bring it back by repeated efforts. W e poor mortals are not allowed by our psychological wardens to be continuously alert for more than a few seconds. Did you ever watch a fox terrier sitting at a rat hole? Did you ever try to coax that fox terrier to do something else while he was on that particular job ? Did you ever note his tenseness, the gleam in his eyes, the steady, unmoving posture, with every atom of his slick little body intent upon one thing and one thing only? On the other hand, did you ever watch a codfish swimming around in a tank apparently inhaling his nourishment from the invisible animal life in the water? Or did you ever watch a mollusk anchored in one place waiting for the food to float into his vicinity? Attention, after all, is controllable by the will power. You can be attentive if you want to be, and you can be as attentive as you are willing to make yourself. It may be a good thing to ask yourself in your study periods if you are like the codfish or like the fox terrier? It is purely a mental state. One hour of "fo x terrier" attention—with any kind of study, particularly music, which demands keenness and alert-ness more than almost anything else—is worth a year of "cod-fish" attention. Indeed, the very attention condition of the mind shows in the countenance. The passive state in which some virtuosi appear on the platform, is by no means that in which they originally studied their works. Your editor in his own teach-ing days always found it profitable to look at the pupil's face. If the pupil had the expression of a codfish, not much could be expected; but if the expression was that of the fox terrier, all eagerness, all alertness, then there was attention. And atten-tion is the greatest factor in learning.
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