Part 19 (1/2)

For the discrimination of sounds, we use Pizzoli's series of little whistles. For the gradation of noises, we use small boxes filled with different substances, more or less fine (sand or pebbles). The noises are produced by shaking the boxes.

In the lessons for the sense of hearing I proceed as follows: I have the teachers establish silence in the usual way and then I _continue_ the work, making the silence more profound. I say, ”St! St!” in a series of modulations, now sharp and short, now prolonged and light as a whisper.

The children, little by little, become fascinated by this. Occasionally I say, ”More silent still--more silent.”

I then begin the sibilant St! St! again, making it always lighter and repeating ”More silent still,” in a barely audible voice. Then I say still in a low whisper, ”Now, I hear the clock, now I can hear the buzzing of a fly's wings, now I can hear the whisper of the trees in the garden.”

The children, ecstatic with joy, sit in such absolute and complete silence that the room seems deserted; then I whisper, ”Let us close our eyes.” This exercise repeated, so habituates the children to immobility and to absolute silence that, when one of them interrupts, it needs only a syllable, a gesture to call him back immediately to perfect order.

In the silence, we proceeded to the production of sounds and noises, making these at first strongly contrasted, then, more nearly alike.

Sometimes we present the comparisons between noise and sound. I believe that the best results can be obtained with the primitive means employed by Itard in 1805. He used the drum and the bell. His plan was a graduated series of drums for the noises,--or, better, for the heavy harmonic sounds, since these belong to a musical instrument,--and a series of bells. The diapason, the whistles, the boxes, are not attractive to the child, and do not educate the sense of hearing as do these other instruments. There is an interesting suggestion in the fact that the two great human inst.i.tutions, that of hate (war), and that of love (religion), have adopted these two opposite instruments, the drum and the bell.

I believe that after establis.h.i.+ng silence it would be educational to ring well-toned bells, now calm and sweet, now clear and ringing, sending their vibrations through the child's whole body. And when, besides the education of the ear, we have produced a _vibratory_ education of the whole body, through these wisely selected sounds of the bells, giving a peace that pervades the very fibres of his being, then I believe these young bodies would be sensitive to crude noises, and the children would come to dislike, and to cease from making, disordered and ugly noises.

In this way one whose ear has been trained by a musical education suffers from strident or discordant notes. I need give no ill.u.s.tration to make clear the importance of such education for the ma.s.ses in childhood. The new generation would be more calm, turning away from the confusion and the discordant sounds, which strike the ear to-day in one of the vile tenements where the poor live, crowded together, left by us to abandon themselves to the lower, more brutal human instincts.

_Musical Education_

This must be carefully guided by method. In general, we see little children pa.s.s by the playing of some great musicians as an animal would pa.s.s. 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 cla.s.sic 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.”

”It's rude to jump.”

This was certainly a beautiful triumph for our method!

This experience shows that it is possible to educate the child's _muscular sense_, and it shows how exquisite the refinement of this sense may be as it develops in relation to the _muscular memory_, and side by side with the other forms of sensory memory.

_Tests for Acuteness of Hearing_

The only entirely successful experiments which we have made so far in the ”Children's Houses” are those of the _clock_, and of the _lowered_ or whispered _voice_. The trial is purely empirical, and does not lend itself to the measuring of the sensation, but it is, however, most useful in that it helps us to an approximate knowledge of the child's auditory acuteness.