"Teach me to live! No idler let me be,
But in Thy service _hand and heart_ employ."

--BAYARD TAYLOR.




PREFACE


A book of this kind, though addressed to children, must necessarily
reach them through an older person. The purpose is to suggest a few of
the many aspects which music may have even to the mind of a child. If
these chapters, or whatever may be logically suggested by them, be
actually used as the basis of simple Talks with children, music may
become to them more than drill and study. They should know it as an
art, full of beauty and of dignity; full of pure thought and abounding
in joy. Music with these characteristics is the true music of the
heart. Unless music gives true pleasure to the young it may be doubted
if it is wisely studied.

Our failure to present music to the young in a manner that interests
and holds them is due not so much to the fact that music is too
difficult for children, but because the children themselves are too
difficult for us. In our ignorance we often withhold the rightful
inheritance. We must not forget that the slower adult mind often meets
a class of difficulties which are not recognized by the unprejudiced