Exercices de la méthode Wilhem Book

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II AN ESSAY IN THE REFORM OF MUSIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS (1905) It is not enough for a select few of the artists and amateurs of a country to be better instructed than their predecessors, for the musical standard of that country to be raised and maintained. If the masses are not capable of following--even at a distance--in the steps of that select few, an impassable barrier will sooner or later be erected between the two elements of a people that in these days must unite if they are to co-exist. If the intellectual aristocracy alone is equipped for progress, the ill-trained masses will be unable to follow; the leaders of the movement--finding themselves isolated, and needing the co-operation of the main body--will be obliged either to turn back and rejoin them, or, continuing their solitary course, be lost in obscurity. I shall be told that it is the fate of reformers to pursue the path of enlightenment in solitude, and that the masses always overtake them in the end!... The masses will not overtake them unless given the necessary equipment and unless sufficiently keen and courageous to traverse, without relaxing, every step of the course. The educational methods of the last centuries are certainly not calculated to enable our children to comprehend and assimilate modern artistic developments. Our artists have forged new implements of creation; these implements must be adjusted to the hands of amateurs, who must then be trained to handle them, and finally entrusted with them at an age when they are most ripe for 'prentice work, when their hands are flexible and easily adapted to new methods, before the fire of ambition has been snuffed out by disappointment and world-weariness, before they have acquired the habit of doing things in...