Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/113

 parts of the human mechanism, were projected thousands of years ago, and yet without the aid of such instruments the people of many lands sang their sweetest songs. In the hands of young children, and indeed of older ones, an instrument is merely a hindrance. It may become a substitute, which is worse! Or it is used as a toy, or diverted from its purpose. And it is doubtless for one or other of these reasons that the greatest teachers, such as Tolstoy, do not care to see any instrument in schools.

Perhaps the first horn was a rounded hand. In any case the first horn or trumpet used by most children is their own rounded hands.

For a long time, though they enjoy instrumental music, and even mere noise, they have little impulse to make any other instrument than this. And so the original instruments are well used, and well nourished, they become stronger, and finer with use, and fall more under the control of the will.

From the very first, however, the impulse to project is a symptom of health, of vigour. It is not the child suffering from adenoids, or weakness of chest or throat, who wants to shout through his hands. It is the healthy child who experiences this need.

The instrument is projected then in the first place