As there is no form of task from which schoolboys are, naturally, 80 sre as the holiday task, it will be interesting to watch the outcome of Canon Lyttelton's experiment allowing music as an optional subject for holiday work instead of some kind of literature. According to the Headmaster of Eton, not more than two per' cent of boys are without some taste for music, s statement which certainly seems: to be borne out by the regret 80 often expressed later in life that "I did not learn to play asa boy." Bat it is surprising to find Canon Lyttelton saying that if music is to be taught at all, it must be taught at home, and that there is: no time for anything) very practical in this direction at Eton.
In other schools time is found for practising by abundant boys; and why not at Eton? Perhaps it is that, so far, schoolboy musicians have numbered nothing like the ninety-eight per cent contemplated by Canon Lyttelton, But the great obstacle which besets boys who are, learning to play is that classical -and mathematical masters resent the idea of time taken for practice from school hours, while the boys resent its being docked from their hours of play. The latter objection is" dangerous one for the scheme of musical holiday tasks: for scales and exercises, which become even agreeable as mental tonic to advanced players, are dull work for the neophyte. Some boys, hor are sure to take to the new idea; and in their case it is urgently necessary that time also should be made for music at school; otherwise what they have learnt st home will be forgotten before the next holidays begin. In "'the spacious days joon Elizabeth" every educated Englishman was expected, and was able, to take his part in glee or madrigal and if our days have become crowded and bustling now, surely that is only the greater reason to recognize the traly educative power of music as branch of litterae humaniores, February 11.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.