The effect of rhythmic training on the time-table and life of a school is like that of a hot water heating system which spreads an equal warmth through all parts of a building. Teachers of other subjects will find that such training provides them with pupils more responsive, more elastic and of more character than they otherwise would be. Therefore, the study of rhythm, as well as education by means of rhythm, ought to be most closely connected with school life.
The College.
(Address to the Dresden Teachers' Association, May 28, 1912)
From many years' experience of music teaching I have gradually produced a method which gives a child musical experiences instead of musical knowledge.
I expect much from education in rhythm in elementary schools, provided it be given regularly, completely and sufficiently. The exercises should be begun at the age of six, with half an hour's lesson three times a week, but these lessons can quite well be taken from playtime. By the age of twelve two lessons a week are sufficient. This training will not only develop the feeling for beauty and form by accustoming the eye to distinguish beautiful movements and lines from those that are ugly, but also render the children susceptible to musical impressions.
There are always children who are not able to sing in time, or even to beat time, to walk in time, or to graduate the strength and rapidity of their movements. Such children are unrhythmic, and it will generally be noticed that these children are stiff and awkward, often also over-excitable. This lack of rhythm is almost like a disease. It is caused by the lack of balance between the mental and physical powers, which results from insufficient co-ordination between the mental picture of a movement and its performance by the body, and these nervous troubles are just as much the cause as the result of such lack of harmony. In some cases the brain gives clear and definite impulses, but the limbs, in themselves healthy, can do nothing because the nervous system is in confusion. In other cases the limbs have lost the power to carry out orders sent by the brain, and the undischarged nerve-impulses disturb the whole nervous system. In other cases again, muscles and nerves are healthy, but insufficient training in rhythm impedes the formation of lasting rhythmic images in the brain. To repeat, the causes of this lack of rhythm all lie in the important but insufficiently recognized psycho-physiological sphere of the co-ordination of brain, nerve-paths and muscles.
The objection is sometimes made that rhythmic gymnastics cause nerve-strain in children. This is not the case. Several brain specialists have told me that they have effected satisfactory cures with rhythmic gymnastic exercises.