It has been said that he who sows thoughts will reap deeds, habits, character.  The force of these words is exemplified in the proper study of music, which results in a rich harvest of self-restraint, self-reliance, industry, patience, perseverance, powers of observation, retentive memory, painstaking effort, strength of mind and character.  To possess these qualities at their best abundant thought must be sown.  Merely to ring changes on the emotions will not elevate to the heights.  The musical education that educates makes of the reasoning powers a lever that keeps the emotions in their rightful channel.

Aristotle, who dominated the world’s thought for upwards of two thousand years, attributed his acquirements to the command he had gained over his mind.  Fixedness of purpose, steady, undivided attention, mental concentration, accuracy, alertness, keen perception and wise discrimination are essential to achievement.  This is true of giant minds; it is equally true of average intellects.  The right musical education will conduce to these habits.  Musical education without them must inevitably be a failure.

Music study is many-sided.  To make it truly educative it must be pursued from both theoretical and practical standpoints.  It should include technical training which affords facility to express whatever a person may have for expression; intellectual training which enables a person to grasp the constructive laws of the art, its scope, history and aesthetics, with all that calls into play the analytic and imaginative faculties; and spiritual development which imparts warmth and glow to everything.  Even those who do not advance far in music study would do well, as they proceed, to touch the art on as many sides as possible, in view of enlarging the musical sense, sharpening the musical perception, concentrating and multiplying the agencies by virtue of which musical knowledge and proficiency are attained.

“Truth,” said Madox-Brown, the Pre-Raphaelite, “is the means of art, its end the quickening of the soul.”  Music does more than quicken the soul; it reveals the soul, makes it conscious of itself.  Springing from the deepest and best that is implanted in man, it fertilizes the soil from which it uprises.  Both beauty and truth are essential to its welfare.  As Hamilton W. Mabie has said:  “We need beauty just as truly as we need truth, for it is as much a part of our lives.  We have learned in part the lesson of morality, but we have yet to learn the lesson of beauty.”  This must be learned through the culture of the aesthetic taste, a matter of slow growth, which should begin with the rudiments, and is best fostered in an atmosphere saturated with good music.