The child needs to be charmed in every way, by the glance as well as by the pose. The teacher who, bending toward them, gathering them about her, and leaving them free to stay or go, touches the chords, in a simple rhythm, puts herself in communication with them, _in relation with their very souls_. So much the better if this touch can be accompanied by her _voice_, and the children left free to follow her, no one being obliged to sing. In this way she can select as "adapted to education," those songs which were followed by all the children. So she may regulate the complexity of rhythm to various ages, for she will see now only the older children following the rhythm, now, also the little ones. At any rate, I believe that simple and primitive instruments are the ones best adapted to the awakening of music in the soul of the little child.
I have tried to have the Directress of the "Children's House" in Milan, who is a gifted musician, make a number of trials, and experiments, with a view to finding out more about the muscular capacity of young children. She has made many trials with the pianoforte, observing how the children _are not sensitive_ to the musical _tone_, but only to the _rhythm_. On a basis of rhythm she arranged simple little dances, with the intention of studying the influence of the rhythm itself upon the co-ordination of muscular movements. She was greatly surprised to discover the _educational disciplinary_ effect of such music. Her children, who had been led with great wisdom and art through liberty to a _spontaneous_ ordering of their acts and movements, had nevertheless lived in the streets and courts, and had an almost universal habit of jumping.
Being a faithful follower of the method of liberty, and not considering that _jumping_ was a wrong act, she had never corrected them.
She now noticed that as she multiplied and repeated the rhythm exercises, the children little by little left off their ugly jumping, until finally it was a thing of the past. The directress one day asked for an explanation of this change of conduct. Several little ones looked at her without saying anything. The older children gave various replies, whose meaning was the same.