Copp: Musical Ability 
303 
COMPOSITION OF A 13-YEAR-OLD BOY 
Acting on the principle that music is as natural a form of self-expression as are words, Mrs. 
Fletcher-Copp tries to get children to express their feelings in this way. The above com- 
position represents the thought of a 13-year old boy after studying a picture called ‘‘The 
Last Outpost,”’ in which an Indian who has been driven from the ancestral hunting-ground 
of his tribe contemplates the waters of the Pacific with the thought that if he is again 
forced by the white man to move, it can only be into the ocean. 
repose on aught found made.” We 
have made the mistake in music teaching 
in the past of putting the finished prod- 
uct of another’s mind before our children 
and forcing them to copy it. Behind 
this mistake is the wrong motive. 
The main idea was to force the child to 
copy, parrot-like, at the earliest possible 
moment, the thoughts of some one else. 
Music was looked upon merely as a 
means of adornment, as something to 
be plastered on the outside to add to the 
attractiveness of the child. The motive 
is altogether wrong. Not slavery to 
someone else’s ideas but freedom to 
express one’s own ideas should be the 
aim. Watch a tiny child seated on his 
mother’s knee. She has been playing 
and he has been told to keep his little 
paddies on her wrists, but presently 
he pushes her hands aside and substi- 
tutes for the beautiful composition his 
own incoherent pattings and poundings 
of the keys, striving “through sounds 
uncouth”’ to express himself; but, alas! 
he is stopped. It is as though a two- 
year-old should toddle to his mother 
(Fig. 7.) 
and stammer with his crooked little 
tongue, “See, mama, ve sun is playing 
hide and go seek wif me,” and the 
mother should say, “You must not talk 
that way, my child. You should say, 
as Homer writes, ‘Lo! Dawn the rosy- 
fingered, opes wide the gates of Day.’”’ 
What would be the effect of this classical 
method of teaching English upon one’s 
joy and proficiency in acquiring the 
mother tongue? 
METHODS OF EDUCATION 
The motive, then, for learning musical 
notation must be for the purpose of 
freeing the child by giving him the 
means of expressing his own ideas on 
paper as well as giving him pleasure in 
reading easily and joyfully the thoughts 
of others. The means used for the 
attainment of these ends are most 
important. They must cultivate as 
many of the child’s senses as possible. 
If he can feel the symbols as well as 
see them; if he may see them in a big, 
tangible form; then through this touch 
contact and through this ready sight, it 
