The mother repeats her rhymes and verses solely to give pleasure, and if our aim is the deepening of appreciation, there is no reason for leaving the green and grassy path that Nature has showed to the mother for the hard and beaten track of “recitation.”  In our own Kindergarten there has never been either rote learning or recitation.  The older children learn the words of their songs, but not to a word-perfect stage, because words and music suggest each other.  Except for that we just enjoy our verses, the children asking for their favourites and getting new ones sometimes by request sometimes not.  Anything not enjoyed is laid aside.  We need variety, but everything must be good of its kind, and verses about children are seldom for children.  Because children love babies, they love “Where did you come from, baby dear?” but nothing like Tennyson’s “Baby, wait a little longer,” and especially nothing of the “Toddlekins” type has any place in the collection of a self-respecting child.  It is doubtful if Eugene Field’s verses are really good enough for children.

All children enjoy singing, but here, as in everything, we must keep pace with development, or the older ones, especially the boys, may get bored by what suits the less adventurous.  In all cases the music should be good and tuneful, modelled not on the modern drawing-room inanity, but on the healthy and vigorous nursery rhyme or folk song.

Children also enjoy instrumental music, and will listen to piano or violin while quietly occupied, for example if they are drawing.  One Nursery School teacher plays soft music to get her babies to sleep, and our little ones fidget less if some one sings softly during their compulsory rest.

“The Kindergarten Band” is another way in which children can join in rhythm.  It came to us from Miss Bishop and is probably the music referred to in the description of the Pestalozzi-Froebel House.  The children are provided with drums, cymbals, tambourines, and triangles, and keep time to music played on the piano.  They can do some analysis in choosing which instruments are most suitable to accompany different melodies or changes from grave to gay, etc.  A full account was given in Child Life for May 1917.

Several years ago, knowing nothing of M. Dalcroze, Miss Marie Salt began an experiment, the results of which are likely to be far-spreading and of great benefit.  Desiring to help children to appreciation of good music, Miss Salt experimented deliberately with the Froebelian “learn through action,” and her success has been remarkable.  Because of its freedom from any kind of formality, this system is perhaps better suited to little children than the Dalcroze work, unless that is in the hands of an exceptionally gifted teacher.  M. Dalcroze himself is delightfully sympathetic with little ones.

Miss Salt tells her own story in an appendix to Mr. Stewart Macpherson’s Aural Culture based on Musical Appreciation.