"She plays it well, though."
"In a way."
"You'll see her appointment will be very popular; she'll make things hum!"
"Likely enough, but I'm sorry for Mildred. I'm afraid she'll be fearfully disappointed."
CHAPTER II
St. Cyprian's College
Among the six day-schools which were to form the "Alliance" none was more important in the city of Kirkton than St. Cyprian's College. Though in numbers it was much smaller than the High School, it possessed a unique and thoroughly-well-deserved reputation of its own. St. Cyprian's specialized in music, and just as at many large educational establishments there is a classical and a modern side, its course of study was arranged for "collegiate" and "musical". No girl was received under twelve years of age, by which time, it was considered, her natural bent ought to have declared itself, and her parents could determine which branch would suit her best. Those who looked forward to a University degree, or any career in which public examinations must play an important part, were placed on the "Collegiate" side, and trained accordingly in the necessary classics, mathematics and physics, which would fit them for matriculation, or as candidates for certain scholarships. In this department St. Cyprian's had done well, and scored several brilliant successes. On the musical side Miss Cartwright considered she met a crying need. She was apt to wax enthusiastic when she discussed her favourite point.
"The time and attention devoted to music in most schools are totally inadequate," she would say. "Take any girl with a moderate amount of talent: the years from thirteen to eighteen are of extreme importance in her musical education. Now if she attends an ordinary High School, she may with great difficulty put in an hour's daily practice, but no allowance at all is made for this in her table of home work, and it must come out of her recreation time. She will probably have about forty minutes' choral singing weekly, and possibly—though this is by no means the rule—half an hour at theory, but of real music she does not understand even the rudiments. Pick out any ordinary girl of sixteen, take her to a concert, and ask her to name for you the various instruments in the orchestra: the chances are a hundred to one that the violin and the 'cello are about the limit of her knowledge. She could not tell you the difference between a sonata and a symphony, or give you the vaguest idea of the bass for such a simple tune as 'God save the King'. Though, of course, girls differ greatly in musical capacity, I contend that the utter lack of any adequate training is largely responsible for the pitiable ignorance and bad taste in music which is a reproach only too justly flung at the British by other European nations. If all schools would give this subject the prominence it deserves, at the end of a generation the present popular street songs would not be tolerated, and we could once more produce something of the quality of the old English, Scotch, and Irish melodies which have lived among our national tunes."