302 
forefathers for ability to read, spell or 
write. Scientific teaching makes these 
things possible to all mankind. 
Exactly as normal is the ability to 
learn to read and think music. 
The first conclusion, then, which I 
venture to lay before students of 
heredity, is that they have, with the 
material at present available, no proper 
ground for drawing conclusions as to 
the distribution of musical talent in 
the population; because there is a great 
deal which is merely latent, having 
been denied the possibility of expres- 
sion. The inheritance of a trait and 
the expression of a trait are two different 
things. No student of heredity would 
consciously ignore the distinction, but 
in the study of the inheritance of musi- 
cal ability they have unconsciously 
ignored it, and therefore their results 
do not correspond with the reality. 
Time and again, as I have said, I have 
taken children from families where there 
was apparently no musical ability, and 
where the child himself was supposed 
to be utterly deficient in music. The 
student of heredity, I fear, would 
‘unhesitatingly have set down such a 
child as non-musical because of failure 
to inherit the prerequisites. Yet this 
child, after being educated in a natural 
manner, has acquired Positive Pitch, 
has learned to compose, to express his 
own feelings musically, and to analyze 
compositions which would baffle many 
teachers. 
Thus, although a child may come from 
a supposedly unmusical family, it by 
no means follows that the child cannot 
develop musical ability of a high order. 
On the other hand, what of the cases 
1 This view has been developed of late years by a number of psychologists. 
The Journal of Heredity 
where the child of two musical parents 
fails to show talent? 
I have in mind one striking case of 
this sort which I met years ago. 
The father was a pianist of international 
renown, the mother a gifted musician. 
They hoped, of course, that their child, 
with its double inheritance, would sur- 
pass either one of them: they confidently 
expected such a result. The child 
was set to studying music at an early 
age, but made no progress whatever; 
he was declared to be dull, uninterested, 
hopeless. 
I was naturally curious to find the 
reason for this state of affairs: and they 
were not hard to find. Almost the 
first inquiry I made disclosed the fact 
that the child showed a dislike for 
tedious hours of practicing, and was 
therefore frequently shut up in a dark 
closet for an hour or two at a time, to 
instil in him a greater love for his lessons, 
and a spirit more obedient to the wishes 
of his parents. Small wonder that he 
lost interest in music; and without 
interest, without an eagerness to learn, 
little can be’ done. But where the 
interest and will exist, it is an unusually 
defective child that cannot acquire a 
considerable amount of musical ability; 
and the same to a less extent holds good 
of adults.!_ Perhaps it may be of inter- 
est if I explain in a little detail the views 
on this point to which twenty years of 
teaching have brought me. 
If the motive for studying music be 
made clear and the method of teaching 
be sound, we may count confidently on 
the results. Browning says, “It is 
better Youth should strive, tHrough 
acts uncouth, towards making, than 
In the Archiv fur 
die gesamte Psychologie, XXXIV, 12, pp. 235-253 (Leipzig, 1915), Siegfried Bernfeld of Vienna 
cites two university students whom he studied, each of whom was supposed to be utterly 
unmusical, until the exertion of the will, as he says, led to the development of considerable 
enjoyment of music. He concludes: ‘‘The individual's reaction to music is by no means wholly 
decided by the nature and quantity of his psychophysical tendencies. It is influenced to a certain 
degree by the will to be or not to be musical . . . Even when accurate tests have shown that a 
person possesses all the elements of musical ability, it cannot be foretold with certainty whether 
he can acquire musical appreciation, for it is possible that an inhibition with retroactive force 
against music may exist in him, a will to be unmusical, or at least to seem so to himself and 
others." Cf. also Sterne, die differentielle Psychologie (1911), p. 265. For the opposite view, 
that heredity is the primary factor, consult Hans Rupp, Ueber die Priifung musikalischen Fahig- 
keiten; Ztschft. f. die angewandte Psychol., IX, Nos. 1 and 2; also C. B. Davenport, Heredity in 
Relation to Eugenics (New York, 1911), p. 48. The psychological literature on music is large; 
for an interesting account of how musical ability is measured see Carl Emil Seashore, Psychology 
in Daily Life (New York, 1913), pp. 196 ff.—The Editor. 
