This must be carefully guided by method. In general, we see little children pass by the playing of some great musicians as an animal would pass. They do not perceive the delicate complexity of sounds. The street children gather about the organ grinder, crying out as if to hail with joy the noises which will come instead of sounds.
For the musical education we must create instruments as well as music. The scope of such an instrument in addition to the discrimination of sounds, is to awaken a sense of rhythm, and, so to speak, to give the impulse toward calm and co-ordinate movements to those muscles already vibrating in the peace and tranquillity of immobility.
I believe that stringed instruments (perhaps some very much simplified harp) would be the most convenient. The stringed instruments together with the drum and the bells form the trio of the classic instruments of humanity. The harp is the instrument of "the intimate life of the individual." Legend places it in the hand of Orpheus, folk-lore puts it into fairy hands, and romance gives it to the princess who conquers the heart of a wicked prince.
The teacher who turns her back upon her scholars to play, (far too often badly), will never be the educator of their musical sense.
The child needs to be charmed in every way, by the glance as well as by the pose. The teacher who, bending toward them, gathering them about her, and leaving them free to stay or go, touches the chords, in a simple rhythm, puts herself in communication with them, in relation with their very souls. So much the better if this touch can be accompanied by her voice, and the children left free to follow her, no one being obliged to sing. In this way she can select as "adapted to education," those songs which were followed by all the children. So she may regulate the complexity of rhythm to various ages, for she will see now only the older children following the rhythm, now, also the little ones. At any rate, I believe that simple and primitive instruments are the ones best adapted to the awakening of music in the soul of the little child.
I have tried to have the Directress of the "Children's House" in Milan, who is a gifted musician, make a number of trials, and experiments, with a view to finding out more about the muscular capacity of young children. She has made many trials with the pianoforte, observing how the children are not sensitive to the musical tone, but only to the rhythm. On a basis of rhythm she arranged simple little dances, with the intention of studying the influence of the rhythm itself upon the co-ordination of muscular movements. She was greatly surprised to discover the educational disciplinary effect of such music. Her children, who had been led with great wisdom and art through liberty to a spontaneous ordering of their acts and movements, had nevertheless lived in the streets and courts, and had an almost universal habit of jumping.
Being a faithful follower of the method of liberty, and not considering that jumping was a wrong act, she had never corrected them.
She now noticed that as she multiplied and repeated the rhythm exercises, the children little by little left off their ugly jumping, until finally it was a thing of the past. The directress one day asked for an explanation of this change of conduct. Several little ones looked at her without saying anything. The older children gave various replies, whose meaning was the same.
"It isn't nice to jump."
"Jumping is ugly."