82 EDUCATION OF A MAN OF SCIENCE 



Personally, I also resent that I was not taught 

 at school to read music by the sol-fa system, which 

 is another of the things that can be poured into 

 most children not only easily but with pleasure to 

 themselves. I have been assured by a learned 

 musician, that in the 17th century reading music 

 was as much a sign of culture as reading a book. 

 There was recently an excellent letter in the Times^ 

 on public school music, pleading that boys should 

 be allowed to drop, let us say greek iambics, and 

 devote the time to serious musical study. The 

 writer describes how at a certain school a good 

 professional orchestra gives a concert once in each 

 term, for which the boys are prepared by having 

 the themes of the movements, e.g. of a Beethoven 

 symphony, played over to them on the piano and 

 expounded. He describes how an athletic boy, 

 a member of the football team, declared, when the 

 concert was over, that there was nothing to live for 

 during the rest of the half, apparently not even foot- 

 ball. No wonder that the writer of this letter 

 should respectfully deride a former Head Master of 

 Eton for his approval of choral singing, on account 

 of its "moral and political value." 



I have always felt that the best teaching I 

 received was in two practical matters, viz., how to 

 play the flute, and how to use a microscope. It may 

 be said that these were subjects in which I took a 

 natural and spontaneous interest, and were there- 

 fore easily taught. This is no doulst partly true, but 

 I do not think it depended on any special attraction 



* Times, Dec 6, igio. Educational Supplement. 



