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456 had been nourished and strengthened, not thwarted nor suppressed until reaction and per- version had occurred. Such questions were stirring the active thought of the founder of the "Science of Music and Education" for fifteen years, unanswered and unsolved by any system in existence. " Are not all hearts seek- ing for the same remedy?" she argued, and in the wholeness of her searching prayer the answer was reflected. In a single night the light dawned, her health was restored, the discovery made! The truth of the natural law of unfoldment and its relation to the child was revealed. God's gift to little children was no longer a dream, but a present reality. To take the message at once to the little ones became her greatest neetl.

Like a pioneer teacher of old, Pestalozzi, who gave forth the first expression of his new idea to a class of children in an Ursuline con- vent, so Nina K. Darlingtone, in the spring of 1896, though of the Protestant faith, was called to teach the nuns in a convent, who had charge of the musical department in their school. Her re-entrance into active teaching found her engaged with these anrl other pupils, who sought from her chiefly ideas of interpretation. As a teacher and worker for children, as well as for those desiring to teach, the more mature woman, with the two little ones of her own, had lost none of the qualities which naturally reach the childlike in heart and which children naturally love. Nevertheless, when urged to teach children at this period, she refusetl, feeling the instruction of beginners to be the most difficult problem of all, and one which she was not yet ready to solve. On continued solicita- tion, however, she consented to take the little ones in a class and teach them in a body the things in music they would not ordinarily learn, and which she had for years imparted in private teaching. Her interest in this work grew rapidly; and, as the great educational idea grew upon her, as means of making matters comprehensible to the children, games were in- vented, songs written, and thus the new method spontaneously expressed itself.

Unlike other systems, "Kindergarten Music- building" is not the expression of a gradual growth of thought, resulting from years of practical teaching only. It is really a discov- ery, the result of the author's life experience. Thus the deep-sighted philosophy of this clear and simple system came from an intense de- sire to present the real essence of music and education to the child in its spiritual signifi- cance, as well as to help little hands and eyes antl ears to grasp the ordinarily stupid and confused beginnings of so complex a subject as music.

The secret of the true environment for the age of childhood is revealed, and as in the case of the same natural law in relation to the seed, which never changes while carried to the four corners of the world as long as it is in the air, but, once placed in the essential environment of soft, moist earth, and given the proper nour- ishment, rewards the labor of the planter by a pleasing sign of growth, so it is with the little child, and so should his mental and musical development be regarded.

Absorbed in this work and in the love of it for its own sake, she was unconscious of at- tracting attention from the outside world, till one day a teacher of nmsic asked to be taught her system of instructing children. A second and third, followetl by many more requests of this nature, were made before she awoke to the fact that she was starting a new era in music- teaching, and that the world wanted her ideas. Her thought had pierced the profundities of musical symbolism and grappled successfully with technical difficulties. She had looked at the art from its mental side, and had reduced all to the child's comprehension in natural terms ; for she began at once what has ever been her principle — to develop the individuality of the student or teacher and to advocate no copying of mere words.

In the winter of 1898, upon the solicitation of the Froebel Preparatory School and the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Nina K. Darlingtone was prevailed upon to leave her home in Philadelphia and establish her work in Boston, where she now resides.

To the many hundreds of teachers who have studied this system directly from her or through correspondence, she has given much time and patient love, resulting in enduring good. It is customary to hear these students state that