"Of course, these lines are only comparative, and there are exceptional cases of astonishing development late in life, due to enormous ambition and industry. Yet the period of highest achievement is usually early in life. This is especially true in the arts where digital skill is concerned.
"All teachers are aware of the need for the best possible drill early in life. The idea one so often hears expressed in America: 'Since my daughter is only beginning her studies—any teacher will do,' has been the source of great laxity in American musical education. If the father who has such an idea would only transpose the same thought to the building of a house he would be surprised to find himself saying: 'Since I am only laying a foundation, any kind of trashy material will do. I will use inferior cement, plaster, stone, bricks, decayed wood and cheap hardware, and employ the cheapest labor I can procure. But when I get to the roof I shall engage the finest roofmakers in the world!'
"The beginning is of such tremendous importance that only the best is good enough. By this I do not mean the most expensive teacher obtainable, but someone who is thorough, painstaking, conscientious, alert and experienced. The foundation is the part of the house in which the greatest strength and thoroughness is required. Everything must be solid, substantial, firm and secure, to stand the stress of use and the test of time. Of course, there is such a thing as employing a teacher with a big reputation and exceptional skill, who would make an excellent teacher for an advanced student, but who might be incapable of laying a good foundation for the beginner. One wants strength at the foundation—not gold ornaments and marble trimmings and beautiful decorations, fretwork, carving. Just as in great cities one finds firms which make a specialty of laying foundations for immense buildings, so it is often wise to employ a teacher who specializes in instructing beginners. In European music schools this has almost always been the case. It is not virtuosity that is needed in the makeup of the teacher of beginners, but rather sound musicianship, as well as the comprehension of the child psychology. Drill, drill, and more drill, is the secret of the early training of the mind and hand. This is indicated quite as much in games such as tennis, billiards and golf. Think of the remarkable records of some very young players in these games, and you will see what may be accomplished in the early years of the young player.
"In all arts and sciences, as one advances, complications and obstacles seem to multiply in complexity until the point of mastery is reached; then the tendency seems to reverse itself, until a kind of circle carries one round again to the point of simplicity. I have often liked to picture this to myself in this way:
"It is encouraging for the student to know that he must expect to be confronted with ever-increasing difficulties, until he reaches the point where all the intense and intricate problems seem to solve themselves, dissolving gradually into the light of a clear understanding day. This is to me a general principle underlying almost all lines of human achievement, and it appears to me that the student should learn its application, not only to his own but to other occupations and attainments. This universal line of life, starting with birth, mounting to its climax in middle life, and then passing on to greater and greater simplicity of means, until at death the circle is almost completed, is a kind of human program which all successful men would appear to follow. Perhaps we can make this clearer by studying the evolution of the steam engine.
"The steam engine started with the most primitive kind of apparatus. At the very first it was of the turbine type. Hero of Alexander (Heron, in Greek) made the first steam engine, which was little more than a toy. According to some historians, Heron lived in the second century before Christ, and according to others his work was done in the latter half of the first century. He was an ingenious mathematician who often startled the people of this time with his mechanical contrivances. It is difficult to show the principle of his engine in an exact drawing; but the following indicates in a crude way the application of steam force something after the manner in which Heron first applied it.
