MUSIC AND THE CHILD

Evening Star, Issue 19774, 26 January 1928, Page 11

MUSIC AND THE CHILD

MORE IMPORTANT THAN LONG TOTS [Special to the 1 Stab.’] CHRISTCHURCH, January 25. Addressing the annual conference of the New Zealand Society of Professional Teachers of Professor J. Shelley, of Canterbury College, said music served an educative purpose, and teachers of music served a definite purpose in educational life. If he had a choice of turning music or mathematics out of the primary schools he would turn out mathematics. That to a New Zealander might sound like heresy, but it would not bo a wrong thing. One of the. really great educational heresies today was over-emphasis on the intellectual side of education on children at too young an age. That intellectual heresy was gradually passing, though not to such an extent in New Zealand as it should. T6o much time was given to “long tots” in New Zealand. In England to-day “long tots” were hardly ever done. Music was almost as early an expression of development as there was. Music was very early specialised in the history of the world, while at various times it had dominated the spirits of countries. Continuing, Professor Shelley spoke of the purpose of music in education and its expression. There had,been a change in the educational attitude towards music, as well as other subjects, in the last few years. A child should be allowed to express music before he was set to learn the form of it. That was difficult, of course, for private teachers, but in the schools he was glad to say something of that sort was now coining into favor. It was through that that, in time, there would be evolved a higher musical technique, a higher musical expression. The same principle should be applied to dancing also, and all similar modes of expression. The idea that all children were born with the same abilities and capacities must be done away with.