Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of hearing good music.  When it falls on listening ears it removes all desire for anything coarse or unrefined.  Constant companionship with it prepares the ear to hear, the inner being to receive, and cannot fail to bring forth fruit.  The creations of noble minds form practical working-forces in shaping character, purifying taste and elevating standards.  A literary scholar cannot be made of one who has not been brought into close touch with the productions of the great masters in literature, nor an artistic painter, or sculptor, of one who has never known a great painting or piece of statuary.  Neither can a thorough musician be made of any one who is ignorant of the master-works of music.  It is well to realize, with Goethe, that the effect of good music is not caused by its novelty, but strikes more deeply the more we are familiar with it.

The human voice being practically the foundation of music and the first music teacher, every well-educated musician should be able to use it, and should have a clear understanding of its possibilities and limitations, no matter what his specialty may be.  Composers and performers alike will derive benefit from some dealing with the vocal element.  Vocal culture is conducive to health, and aids in gaining command of the nerves and muscles.  They who profit by it will best understand the varied nuances of intonation, expression and coloring of which music is capable, and will learn how to make a musical instrument sing.  Likewise vocalists should familiarize themselves with other domains of their art, and should be able to handle some instrument, more especially the piano or organ, that they may be brought into intimate relations with the harmonic structure of music.

To make music study most effective the scientific methods of other departments of learning must be applied to it.  For the supreme good of both art and science need to be brought into close fellowship.  Art is the child of feeling and imagination; science the child of reason.  Art requires the illumination of science; science the insight of art.  Music combines within itself the qualities of art and science.  As a science it is a well-ordered system of laws, and cannot be comprehended without knowledge of these.  As an art, it is its business to awaken a mood, to express a sentiment; it is knowledge made efficient by skill—­thought, effect, taste and feeling brought into active exercise.

No art, no science, affords opportunity for more magnificent mental discipline than music.  Moreover, a careful, earnest study of the art furnishes a stimulus to activity in other fruitful fields.  Although subordinate to life and character it contributes freely to these, and its best results come from life that is exceeding rich, and character that is strong, true and enlightened through broad, general culture.  The musical education that educates develops something more than mere players and singers; it develops thinking, feeling musicians, in whom large personalities may be recognized.