And here, at the very threshold of our subject, we
may profitably pause for a moment to ask ourselves
why this particular study of the appreciation of
music necessarily gets its results so gradually and
so slowly, and why it therefore requires so peculiar
a patience in the student. Why do we study such a
subject at all, how may we best study it, and what
kind of results shall we expect to get?

To take the second question first, it may be pointed
out that as what we are seeking is the development
and refinement of individual faculties, in which
different people differ widely, the only possible
method is one of individual activity. In other words,
each student has to listen, compare, distinguish,
judge, for himself. Mere facts as facts are of little
avail to him, and are not the proper subject of this
book. ^* Information, the accumulation of knowledge,
must here give place to education, the "leading
out" or developing of faculties. Appeals to author-
ity, however high, are stultifying, as diverting him
from the only authority that can speak in such mat-
ters, that namely of his own senses and intelligence.

Suppose, for example, you wish to appreciate two

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