In all communal work the results fall roughly under two heads:
1. The getting of new ideas, and of new ways of presenting old ideas.
2. The development of character, due to the mixing with fellow students and with those who are directing the work.
So far as the actual work is concerned, stress has been laid on the following:
1. The necessity of considering music as a language.
2. Various methods for teaching in accordance with this idea.
3. The principle of the inclusion of the work in the regular curriculum of schools, with class treatment.
In the short space of one year, which is all that can be generally spared by the student, it is impossible for her to realize the full bearing of all that has been done. It is only when we see such work in perspective, after the lapse of a little time, when it has been possible to work out at leisure some of the practical points involved, that we can perceive all the ground covered.
Many students have experienced considerable difficulty at first in doing themselves what they have seen children do, who have been trained along these lines, i.e. to write down two-, three-, or four-part exercises in dictation, to transpose at sight, to extemporize without hesitation at the piano, &c. The feeling of working against time, of examinations to be passed, of discouragement at apparently slow progress, has possibly produced a state of mental indigestion, and the only cure for this is Time, the universal doctor.
The student is now at the point of entering a new sphere of work. The instrument has been sharpened. How is the application to be directed? A word of warning is necessary. The young and enthusiastic teacher, fresh from the inspiration of a year's work with those interested in her development, is too often apt to be over-rigid in enforcing a new presentment of ideas.