Year: 1875

There are certain arts in high repute
among the people which are so inefficiently
taught, and so imperfectly acquired, as to
call for some stimulating and suggestive
questioning. The amount of money eX-
pended upon the teaching of music to the
young in this country is enormous and
what are the results? In every ladies'
school, among our forty millions of people.
the piano is sounding from morning until
night. In all the cities and large towns,
industrious gentlemen, each with port
folio under his arm, go from house to
house, giving instruction upon this pOpu-
lar Instrument, and in forty-nine cases out
of every fifty, their pupils stop exactly
where they leave them, In how many
families in this great city of New York
can a girl be found whois capable of going
on with her practice alone. and perfecting
herself in an art, the rudiments and prin-
ciples of which she has acquired? Very
few. we answer. We do not know of one
The universal testimony is, that the mo-
ment instruction ceases, progress ceases
Under the tuition of her teacher, the uni
versal American girl learns her dozen
pieces so as to play them fairly, and never
goes beyond them. These she plays until
they are worn out to her own ear, and the
ears of her friends; gradually she loses her
power to play these well; and then she
drops the piano altogether, especially if
she is married. The money paid for her
accomplishment, and the precious time she
has expended upon it, are dead loss.


The lessons in drawing, given in the
same way, are, as rule, as poor in results
as those given in music. A set of pictures,
of various degrees of badness, are manu-
featured and framed, and that is the end of
it, unless the bolstering and spurring of a
teacher are called in to keep the pupil 10 her
work; but, beyond the eye of teacher,
the work rarely goes. The average
American girl not only has no impulse to
perfect herself in the ornamental arts TO
which she has devoted so much time, but
she considers it hardship to be required
TO take single step without assistance.
She is just as dependent on teacher when
she ought to be able to stand and walk
alone, as she is when she begins with
him.


Now we doubt whether this state of
things is owing to something radically
wrong in the girl. She has her respOn-
sibility in the matter. without question,
but it seems to us that there must be
something radically wrong in the teach
ing. A method of teaching which uni
yersally produces the result of dependence
upon the teacher, stands self-condemned.
What would be thought of teacher Of
mathematics who. under fair conditions,
could not teach his pupils to RI ason for
themselves? What of a teacher Of the nat
ural sciences who should uniformly leave
his pupils incapable of an independent in
vestigatiOn in geology, or chemistry or
botany? Yet here are two great classes
OF teachers who uniformly leave the young
submitted TO their tuition, not only pIacti-
cally helpless but without the first i'm
pulse to go on without help. We know
nothing of their business, but we know
enough, from the results of it, to know that
they are as ignorant as we are of certain
very essential departments OF it. We
know, also, that if they cannot produce
better results, the quicker they are out of
the way the better.


In the entire coDglomerate educational
system of Americi there is no department
in which so much time and money are alb
solutely thrown away as in what are called
the ornamental arts The teachers in this