Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/130

116 they long for, the second the opportunity of spreading abroad their knowledge and making it live. Thus a public academy would at the present day be a great advantage to both masters and scholars. It would put within reach of the latter the means of developing capacities which without such help must often go to waste. And for teachers of music it would be most valuable to have a centre whence their energies could be directed from a single point of view, and to a single object, and thus be preserved from indifference and isolation, and from the resulting sterility of which we are too well aware….