Polytechnic Association. (347 



Dr. P. H. Yan der Weyde — It is not necessary to read every note. 

 There are rules of harmony and melody ; and by giving a glance at 

 it, the musician can divine the rest. 



Dr. J. J. Edwards — He must see every note with his mind, which 

 comes to the same thing. 



Dr. P. H. -Yan der Weyde — He only needs to look in most cases 

 at the upper and lower note, and that will know all that is between. 

 A good musician will not make mistakes in that way. 



The President — Suppose there are accidentals. 



Dr. P. H. Yan der Weyde — He knows when there should be 

 accidentals, and if they are omitted he plays them, knowing that the 

 omission is a mistake. The number of chords is limited ; and it is 

 that which makes it possible to play operatic scores so easily. 



The President — How the mind perceives so much at once we do 

 not yet know. But it reminds me of the process of telegraphing the 

 handwriting, or a picture, by passing a pointer over the sheet contain- 

 ing the writing, the circuit being completed every time it crosses the 

 writing. 



Dr. J. W. Richards — I have heard nothing said to-night upon the 

 mode of expression after perception. Good readers see half a line 

 or more before thfey read it, committing it to memory as they proceed. 

 The difficulty seems to me as great in the expression of the percep- 

 tion as in the perception itself. 



Dr. Yan der Weyde — A good illustration of that is in playing 

 music at sight. The musician must read a good deal in advance, — in 

 difficult music, twenty or thirty notes to the second ; it would be 

 impossible to execute it, if every note had to be looked at. But the 

 musician has practiced all possible combinations, and when he sees a 

 certain combination he executes it. We don't look at every letter 

 when we read a newspaper. 



Dr. L. Bradley — I know a case where a person gradually moving 

 the eye down a printed page, without moving it from left to right, 

 can see and comprehend and remember the contents of the page. 



Dr. D. D. Parmelee — Probably one man in every five reads his 

 newspaper in just that way. It is the only way now that a man can 

 keep posted up. 



Dr. J. J. Edwards — You must analyze as well as generalize. A 

 letter expresses an idea, and if you do not read every letter as you go, 

 you cannot get the sense. 



When we look at a complicated vista, the eye at once takes that in ; 

 but to understand it, you must go through every detail ; if you break 



