Copp: Musical Ability 
seen the picture weeks before of a lonely 
Indian standing against the sunset sky, 
gazing in calm desperation into the 
ocean at his feet. This would be the 
next move if he were ordered further 
west. The picture was called “The Last 
Outpost” and it stirred up feelings 
in the boy’s heart which presently 
got out on paper (much the safest, 
healthiest place for them) in the form 
of this little composition. This is only 
one example of oh, so many natural 
outbursts of feeling in music. 
Every human being feels at some time 
or other the need of music, but this 
music which he needs is not the artificial 
substitute which has usurped the place 
of the real thing. Music can be to each 
only what he is capable of hearing, feel- 
ing and understanding. Therefore 
when one sits at the piano and plays a 
Beethoven Sonata which one cannot 
think, cannot analyze, cannot mentally 
hear—plays exactly in the manner of 
the Herr Professor—one is exemplifying 
the parrot in music and this is an 
unsatisfactory accepting of the unreal 
for the real, which gets us nowhere. 
305 
Man is not the sum total of his words 
but of his thoughts and it behooves us 
to stop copying words, words, woxds in 
music and to begin to think and to 
express ourselves. 
When we really believe what we say, 
that “nothing is too good for the 
American child,’ we shall give him 
eight years’ training in the public school 
in self-expression in music and the 
results will prove beyond cavil the 
source and cause and meaning of music. 
They will also, I am sure, leave no 
ground for the belief now entertained by 
some geneticists, that musical ability 
is a rare “unit character’’ due, as has 
been alleged, to some “‘defect in the 
protoplasm”’ which only a few families 
possess; they will show on a large scale 
what my own experience has already 
made clear to me, that musical ability is 
part of the universal inheritance of man, 
just as the ability to talk is, and that 
the differences between individuals in 
respect to it are due much more to 
training than to differences in the 
heredity. 
Official Register of Selected Plants in Hungary 
The Hungarian Minister of Agricul- 
ture has accepted the scheme proposed 
by Emile Grabner in his report presented 
in 1913 to the Royal Institute of Plant 
Breeding ot Magyarovar and has issued 
an order regarding an official register of 
selected plants in Hungary. On the 
basis of this regulation, the State recog- 
nition and official registration of selected 
Hungarian plants came into force, on 
September 1, 1915. The Royal Insti- 
tute of Plant Breeding is responsible for 
the keeping of the official register. The 
effect of this provision will be to give an 
additional impetus to plant breeding 
which of latter years has already made 
such rapid strides in Hungary. On the 
one hand it will protect Hungarian 
growers from the adulteration of seeds 
and the false description of inferior 
seeds, and on the other hand, it will 
afford a safe guarantee to the purchasers 
of the strict selection of the species the 
seed of which they wish to acquire. 
At the same time, the Minister of 
Agriculture has authorized the said 
Institute to present, as soon as possible, 
detailed schemes regarding the develop- 
ment, on a large scale, of the intensive 
selection of Hungarian plants. The 
‘Minister considers it desirable that the 
work of selection should not be left 
merely to a few enthusiasts but should 
be taken up in a methodical manner by 
all practical agriculturists, with the close 
collaboration of the said Institute.— 
Bulletin of International Institute of 
Agriculture, Rome. 
Crossing Apricots and Peaches with Cherries 
The wild Compass cherry has been 
crossed with the apricot and the peach, 
at the Minnesota state fruit-breeding 
farm. A number of seedlings have been 
secured but have not yet fruited. The 
cherry was used as the mother parent, 
and the hybrids resemble the pollen- 
bearing parent strongly in every in- 
stance, according to Supt. Charles 
Haralson. 
