One of the children, whose graph was somewhat as follows:
(pauses, that is, on the line of quiescence, with frequent excursions into the negative field), took no part in these rhythmic exercises. On the contrary, he was always breaking them up by pushing the other children out of line or making a noise. Finally, however, he did learn not to disturb others; in other words, to stay quiet, something which he had never known how to do before. It is a great conquest for a disorderly child to gain the ability to become quite motionless, in a gently placid state of mind. His next step was to learn to move delicately, with respect for other people; and he came to have a certain sensitiveness about his relations with his schoolmates. For example, he used to blush when they smiled at him and even when he took no part in what they were doing, he shared their activities with an affectionate attention. From this point on Riziero (that was the child's name) entered on a higher plane of existence—one of order, labor and politeness.
The fact also that children at times listen to the music, while remaining seated comfortably around the room, watching the other children dance and march, is in itself a pretty thing. The children who are seated become very self-controlled. They watch their schoolmates or exchange a few words cautiously with each other. At times, even, they let themselves go in interesting expressions of movement with their arms. The manifestations of placidity and interest here seen cannot be disjoined from a healthful, spiritual upbuilding—a beautiful orderliness, which is being established within them. Obviously, a wonderful harmony springs up between the teacher, who plays with enthusiastic feeling and with all possible skill of hand and abundance of spirit simply because she feels the musical phenomena around her in the children, and the pupils who, little by little, are transformed under this influence, and show an understanding of the music, which becomes for them something more and more intimate, more and more complete. It is no longer a question of the step, but of the position of the whole body: arms, heads, chests are moved by the music.
Finally, many of the children beat time with their hands, and interpret correctly without ever having been taught distinctions between 3 and 4 time, etc. When a keen interest in "guessing" the time is awakened in them, the children look about for various objects—wands, tambourines, castagnettes, etc., and the class exercise is developed to perfection. The child comes to be "possessed" by the music. He obeys the musical command with his whole body and becomes more and more perfect in this obedience shown by his muscles.
Here is a pretty story which will show to what extent children can feel themselves dependent on the music which "makes them move." Once my father went into a room where a little Parisian girl whom he was very fond of was passionately marching to the rhythm of a tune played on the piano. The child usually ran to meet the old gentleman; but that day the moment she saw him she began to shout to Miss Maccheroni, who was playing, "Arrête, arrête!" She wanted to go and shake hands with my father, something she could not do as long as the music was continuing to command her to move with the rhythm. And in fact, it was not until Miss Maccheroni stopped playing that the little girl was able to run and deliver her greeting.
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We have prepared a series of tunes for this work and I think it will be useful to give here three which we finally selected because they have succeeded, whenever they were tried, in arousing in the children the phenomena above described. There are eight movements chosen from repeated over and over again and played with all possible accuracy, will surely, sooner or later, be felt in every rhythm by the children.
The transition from following the time by ones (that is, one beat for every rhythmic element) to the indication of simply the beginning of the measure (that is, one beat on the thesis) appeared for the first time in a "Children's House" directed by Miss Maccheroni. There, one morning when the children were following the music with great pleasure, marching about and beating on tambourines, it was a girl who first caught the strong beat (thesis). A little boy behind her made the conquest a second later; but while the little girl lost what she had gained almost immediately, the little boy developed it to perfection. Shortly after other children made the same progress, apparently as a saving of effort; they began, that is, by beating once on every step. This required a rapid movement and an endless succession of beats. All of a sudden they began to beat on the first note of a measure.