The supervisor also meets the unmusical grade teacher who says: "I can't sing, I now nothing of music." She must have her ignorance transformed into knowledge, and her "I can't" converted into an "I will." And just here may we say that there is no teacher, whether she sings or not, but who can, by study and application, learn music and teach it successfully in her grade. She could not teach arithmetic until she had spent several years in studying it. Let her try the same method with the music, and she will find her success in exact ratio to her efforts. All this requires tact, patience, and judgment on the part of the supervisor, an untiring vigilance, and an ever-increasing interest in his work. But you say: "All this is ideal." Yes. Yet it is only as we make our ideals realities that we grow in our work. It is the teacher with high ideals who develops into the ideal teacher. You say: "It throws all the responsibility on the supervisor." Yes and no. The commander of an army is the soldiers' ideal, altho he may be hampered by human frailties and weaknesses. But just in so far as he seeks to realize the ideals of his position is he successful. On him falls all the responsibility of the conduct of the battle; yes, but every soldier in the ranks is sharing that responsibility, and from the least to the greatest all bear their part. The supervisor must be a leader. He must have conscious and recognized ability as such. Leadership implies better acquaintance with the work required of the teachers than they possess themselves. This acquaintance is the result of knowledge and experience, past and present. For the ideal supervisor as well as the successful teaher is the one who is constantly growing, mentally and professionally. In the schools of any city, next in importance to the position of the superintendent is that of the supervisor of music, and he should be a man worthy of his office. He has an opportunity to know the work of all the teachers, to note the excellencies and defects of all; and, if he is a man of careful discernment, he will profit much by his observations. Because of this he needs all the more to know much of all the subjects, as well as his own. He should not only know them superficially, but should be able to teach them if opportunity offers. This will give him a keener insight into the abilities of the pupils and a truer appreciation of their needs. If he be a student of mathematics, he will be able to reach some thru the arithmetic of music. He can be of great assistance to the science teacher if he possess a knowledge of physics and can talk to the pupils upon the subject of sound. He thereby not only awakens and strengthens the interest in the subject mentioned, but gives new light upon the music. If he can go with the history class into the records of the past, and show them the origin and purpose of the songs of the nations, which have won battles and overthrown empires, or lead them to the firesides of some of the greatest authors who have thought their best thoughts while listening to music; or if he can direct them to listen to Moore, Shelley, Cowper, Keats, Bulwer, Shakespeare, and many others, as they chant in the magic cadence of poetry the charms and praises of music -if he can do this, he has not only broadened and enriched his own mental being, but has put into the heads and hearts of his pupils and teachers the elements of that higher and better culture which, even while they remain in this world, discovers to them both earth and heaven. The supervisor needs to see his special subject in its true relation to the school system as a whole; to view it in perspective, if you please; not to give it undue importance over other things. He must see its bearings upon the other subjects taught and their relations to it. He must know its limitations. He must get that view which substitutes the satisfaction of being a part of a process for the satisfaction of completing things. He who can so see his own work in true relations to the whole gets that spirit of healthy optimism which comes of looking at the whole and working for distant ends. Such a supervisor is sure to be successful. The optimist is the man of ideals. The man of ideals is the man who is today lifting the world. It was such a man who wrote for us: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! SUPERVISORS AND SUPERVISION WALTER H. AIKEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF MUSIC, CITY SCHOOLS, The keynote for the twentieth-century music supervisor was sounded by Robert Browning sixty-five years ago, when as a boy, in that masterly poem of "Paracelsus," he wrote: Truth is within ourselves, it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness, And to know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly The demonstration of a truth, its birth, And you trace back the influence to its spring And source within us, where broods a radiance vast It is in consonance with these thoughts that we plan our work, and strive to cultivate in the child a spiritual power and a power for selfactivity-powers that shall be for the child's service thru life. It is the teacher who deals with the spiritual nature of the child. We would question the authority of a supervisor who would plan for each day of the week, and prescribe just when and how each point was to be presented to the child. Were such a procedure adopted, teachers would become similar to mechanics working at the bidding of a foreman. The skill of the master-instructor would seem to lie more in leading teachers to grow into method than in prescribing methods for them. It is held that no supervisor ought to be allowed to direct in the matter of the musical education of a child, unless he can first intelligently plan and execute a consistent course of study in that subject for all of the grades. This should be considered the test of fitness. If to this fitness in his equipment be added breadth - the power to see largely, to think largely, to judge largely-there must arise a habit of largeness, and with it the power to hold to the highest, unmoved by the submerging waves of a thousand lesser duties. In connection with this skill of planning and executing a course of musical study, we make two declarations for the thoughtful supervisor to consider: first, what we have learned our pupils may learn; second, it may be better that they should not learn all that we have learned, and so have room for their own independent acquisitions. A great writer has said that society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of its members; that it is a joint-stock company which agrees to the better securing of his bread to each shareholder at the price of a surrender of the liberty and culture of the eater; that, in short, the individuality is a fault, conformity a virtue. In musical art, it has been well said that "conformity is the parent of inefficiency." "To know what you prefer," as Stevenson says, "instead of humbly saying amen to what the world says you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive." Supervisors! are we training our boys and girls into conformity; cramming their youthful brains with information which they cannot use ? It behooves us then to sift the knowledge that we impart to the child, and consider very carefully just how much and what to present. We thus avoid the danger of attaching a fictitious value to what we have learned, and that perhaps with considerable effort. Upon such material let us turn the fiercest searchlight, learning to criticise others keenly and our selves severely, even savagely. In our duties as supervisors are we taking cognizance of the child's natural endowments and providing for his fullest development, thus cultivating "the power to do"-creating self-activity? Are we training the eye, the ear, the vocal organs, the hands; teaching music thru tonerelationship and not simply teaching notes? Are we seeing that every pupils what they lesson has a point to it? Are we making clear to the are to learn and then showing them how to learn it? Are we putting ourselves in the child's place, and not presenting the same subject in the same way with all children, nor having a set plan for removing all difficulties? Those of you who have followed the educational literature of the past five years, and especially our musical literature, have found it abounding in plans and devices of all sorts and of varying merit-sightsinging-from-Wagner-while-you-wait schemes and other "no difficulty" methods. Some of these methods are very ingenious and attractive, and it is feared that many teachers are using them without an inquiry respecting the ends to be reached or the principles on which they are based. A device is often approved because it "works well," that is, it interests the pupil and is readily manipulated. It is surprising that so many useless devices are used and commended on the erroneous test of availability. While it is conceded that some of these devices "work well" and interest pupils, we must not forget that interest is not the end of school training; it is only a necessary condition- a means to the end. It is easy to deceive the American public by showy results with modulators and other appliances; but real sight-singing in time and tune combined, and in parts sung from a printed page, is far in advance of modulator work. The search of the twentieth-century music supervisor must not be simply for that which is available, but for superior means to attain superior ends. It is not enough that the end is reached, but it must be reached in the best possible manner. We are all agreed that sight-singing involves the most exact and instantaneous appreciation of the meaning of a musical sign; that these musical concepts and signs have to be built, as it were, into the pupil's mind; that anything short of this is a delusion and an imposture. In watching the drills on tone-relationship we have been impressed with the fact that some teachers scatter much after the manner of a shotgun, covering a wide range, but doing little execution. Concentration on a single point is a necessity. We must learn to find the weak spot in the difficulty, and not have the difficulty find the weak spot in us. It has also been observed that where the cry of."overwork," "too much expected," "impossible course of study," has been heard, there has been some aimless teaching indulged in; or, to use the language of a noted general, "too much skirmishing and not enough battle." What a moral exaltation there is in bringing all of one's powers to bear upon some objective point, and, when we have accomplished this, to be able to look upon it as a kind of measure of ourselves and of our capabilities! Has it occurred to you that there is a vast waste of energy in standing around? Pearls are obtained by diving for them; they never turn up on their own accord to the waiting "Micawbers." It is suggested that no man with his hands in his pocket ever did anything except change oxygen to carbonic acid. Enthusiasm accomplishes the work of this world; to it we are indebted for our greatest reforms, our greatest battles, our greatest victories. We have been deeply impressed during the past year with the fact that, even where the present attainments of the teacher were limited, if he was brimful of enthusiasm, he was a hundred fold more successful than one who had greater skill, and perhaps a better furnished mind, but who was not so enthusiastic in his work. We are forced to agree with Carlyle as we read in Sartor Resartus: Much more of mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of spirit; thought kindling itself at the fire of living thought. How shall he give kindling in whose inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder? It is thought that the educational fire has been burning with especial fervor among the music supervisors of the nation during the past twentyfive years, for perhaps in no other study taught in the school curriculum have there been such vast changes, and for the better, as in the presentation and teaching of music in the schools. Some of us have been more cautious than others in casting aside the old and tried, and adopting something merely because it was new; waiting, perhaps, for it to be proven better before according it the preference. But when the superior merit of a new method has been fully established, we have not been slow in banishing all narrow prejudice and giving to it hearty approval. -- The supervisor's vineyard is the ideals in the minds of those with whom he is working their taste, judgment, and standards of excellence. He is to be found in the schoolroom, at the side of the teacher, giving advice, model lessons, withholding no good thing. Here it is that plans are suggested, experiences compared, the successes of each becoming the possible successes of all. Supervision is not a success unless the supervisor bears in mind the distinct activities with which man is endowed --the intellectual, the moral or spiritual, and the physical; activities not separate in our musical work, but more or less united thruout our course of training, often blending in the same exercise. It behooves us to see that teachers know the point of each lesson, whether its special end is knowledge or power or skill, and it is obvious. that the more clearly this end is seen, the wiser will be the plans, the more skillful the execution, and the more fruitful the results. Further, if the pupil sees the aim of the lesson, then expectation will be excited in his mind—a most favorable mental disposition for the beginning of instruction. He will thus be placed in the circle of thought in which he is to move, kindred ideas will arise that will be most welcome aids to the acquisition of that which is new, and he will thereby be given a stronger impulse to exercise his own will. Some may say that there is no royal road to music, but it is thought that there are some ways that more than others hold the clue to the |