18 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
correctly, call them by their proper names, tell how much each note is higher 
than the others and how long time each one must take. When you can do this for 
every tune in this book you can finish it and go through a higher book in the same 
way. But one bright pupil says : 
I don't see any sense in it at all. I don't understand what you mean by 
higher and longer notes, an octave, the scale, the beats, and the measure, and 
don't see how I can remember the names and kinds of so many different charac- 
ters. The teacher says : 
Oh ! it is a most delightful study. When these tunes are played they make 
most heavenly music, and it is worth a great deal to you. 
Student. — I wish I could hear some of them played. 
Teacher. — Yes, it would be better if you could. 
S.— Why can't I ? 
T. — We would need a piano for that. 
S. — Can I ever understand music without one? 
T. — Not very well, but they cost a good deal of money and the school can't 
afford to buy one. 
S. — Then I will go to a school that can afford one. 
She goes; and finds the teacher with a good instrument. She now under- 
stands that there is something quite interesting in the notes and tunes when the 
teacher illustrates them by playing on the instrument. She, being an exception- 
ally thoughtful and aspiring person, thinks she would like to know how to play 
for herself. The teacher raises his hands in holy horror with the astonished ex- 
clamation that she would get the piano out of tune, break the strings and the 
keys, injure the pedal, and positively declares this is only for the teacher to use. 
But says she : Can I ever understand music to do me any good unless I 
earn to play myself? Did you learn without a piano tb use ? 
Teacher. — No I didn't, and you can't, but the school has made no provision 
for practical exercises by the pupils th^iselves. All you can get here is the 
privilege of hearing me play and of having the principles taught you. 
Her desire to secure some satisfactory benefit from her expenditure of 
money, ■ time and effort, determines her to seek a school in which she can 
have a piano for her own practice. She succeeds ; and soon learns that, to be- 
come at all proficient, she must have a piano of her own to which she can have 
access at all times. 
This is what it costs to gain proficiency in music, and no plea of want of 
funds would for a moment excuse any school for attempting to teach music with- 
out the necessary outlay. To place science on an equal footing with this accom- 
plishment, each pupil should have his own set of apparatus, illustrative series of 
specimens and preparations a good cabinet, microscopes and other essentials to 
his work, in his own home and at his own disposal. This would make in the 
aggregate a considerable outlay of money ; but probably not so much as is ex- 
pended for excellence in instrumental music, and this is retained only at the addi- 
tional expense of constant practice. Yet science, in nine schools out of ten, 
