any other subject in the school curriculum. There are many reasons for
this. In many cases a visiting teacher takes the work, who finds it
difficult to learn the names of all the children in one lesson a week,
and who therefore starts at a disadvantage. Then the size of the class
for songs is always larger than that of classes in other subjects, and
there is therefore more inducement to inattention on the part of the
children.

Nothing is more pitiful than to see a young, inexperienced mistress
grappling with a large class of healthy, restless children, who know
from experience that the weekly song lesson may be turned to good
account for their own little games!

There is, of course, the born teacher, who sends an electric shock
through the room directly she enters it, and who, without asking for it,
secures instant silence and eager attention. Such people are rare, and
it must be our task now to give a few practical suggestions to those
less fortunate people who do not possess the innate gift, but who are
willing to learn.

To begin with, the teacher of songs must have real personality; and if
she does not possess this by nature, she must do her best to develop
what she has. She must be full of vitality, she must understand
children, and, above all, she must be genuinely fond of music, in such a
way that she cannot do without it. The last qualification often implies
a certain sensitiveness, which finds a difficulty in accommodating
itself to a workaday world, where people have little time, or
inclination, to study the 'moods' of others. Very artistic people are a
well-known difficulty to the authorities of schools. In order to excel
in their art, they must not only have a 'capacity for taking pains', but