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is to make a paste, or bring out a polish, Touch is the testing organ, and must have the requisite delicacy; if the work is judged by colour, the Eye must be duly sensitive; if to play on an instrument, the Ear must discriminate the shades of sound. However flexible and powerful be the active instrument, it can never transcend the feeling of the effect produced. The most delicate fingers are useless for musical performance, when the ear is wanting in a corresponding delicacy of musical perception.*

Thirdly, we need to estimate the motives to concentrated attention; of these, the chief is a taste, interest, or liking for the occupation itself; and next in order must be ranked an agreeable end to be gained by means of it. The special fascination for handicraft industry, manifested in some constitutions, is a mixed feeling. Part of it, however,-perhaps the largest part-comes from the muscular and sensitive endowments themselves; when these are of a high order there is apt to be an accompanying charm in their exercise. The mere possession of the elements of skill-the hand and the sensemakes it a pleasure to exercise them; this is not merely from the distinction of superiority (a motive of no mean force), but also from the concurrence of a certain amount of feeling with every considerable endowment. If we have a powerful and flexible active organ, we are gratified by its exercise. In like manner, as to the sense concerned, we cannot have a nice ear for musical pitch, such as would favour musical acquirements, without being susceptible to the pleasure of music; and the same is true of colour.

* As regards many kinds of mechanical manipulation, the muscular sensibility counts twice, being a property of the organ, and also a property of the senso. Thus, in handling a dough, or tightening a string, the sense concerned is muscular, and the nice graduation of the arm and hand to suit the desired effect is also a muscular discrimination. Hence manual tact, or skill in working with tools or instruments, is doubly dependent on the muscular endowment. Even where the effect is judged, not tactually, or so as to bring in the sense of resistance, but by the eye, the ear, or the taste, the flexibility and measured graduation of the active organ involves the discriminative feeling of expended power, which attaches to the muscular system, and is no doubt unequally manifested in different constitutions.

The more general feelings of the mind, involved in mechanical aptitude, are the pleasure of Power in producing effects, and the satisfaction of the wants and desires that are the final end of industrial occupation. Apart from the motives of subsistence and gain, there is in many individuals a considerable degree of interest in mechanical operations, attributable to the possession of the main aptitudes for the work. Gardening, carpentry, carving, and other mechanical arts, are adopted among the recreations of leisure hours, no less than music. Louis the Sixteenth's lock-making has a place in history.

64. We must now advert to the circumstances aiding in mechanical acquisition, that depend not on the inborn peculiarities, but on the manner of going to work. This is the practical point. In the army, the recruits are drilled three times a day-morning, forenoon, and afternoon, for about an hour and a half or two hours each time. They have thus a meal and a period of rest between each drilling. The main points to be attended to are these:-In the first place, the moments of greatest bodily vigour and freshness are to be selected. In the next place, the exercise ought not to be continued too long at a time; when the muscles and brain are once thoroughly fatigued, the plasticity is at an end; nothing is gained by persisting farther. Lastly, the lessons ought not to be too short: that is to say, a certain time is requisite to get the body into the set that the exercises require. Scarcely any exercise of less than half an hour's duration, will take a decided hold of the system. To hit the mean between the period of thorough engagement of the organs in the work on hand, and the period of excessive fatigue, constitutes the practical judgment of the drill-master in every department. In the army, where the time of the learners is completely under command, the system of three daily lessons with intervals of rest and refreshment is chosen as the best arrangement on the whole; the mental disgust apt to be generated by occupying the entire strength of the system upon one class of operations, is not taken into account.

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In the discipline of early education in general, there is more variety of interest, and it is possible to occupy nearly half the day continuously upon the work. But the army system is the model, in circumstances where it is practicable to bring the pupils together, early morning, forenoon, and afternoon.

The rule for the exercises of the learner is very different from the rule for the practised workman at his work. In this last case, long continued and uninterrupted application is best. But in learning a new thing, the stress of the attention very soon fatigues the brain; so does the committing of blunders and false steps. Moreover, the organs unhabituated to an operation are less able to sustain it. When, however, the mechanical routine is perfect, and the parts strengthened by long practice, it is better to continue at work for a number of consecutive hours.

The youth learning a trade keeps the same hours as the workman, and is not treated as an army recruit or a school-boy. In his circumstances the plan of proceeding is different. The apprentice, having gained some one single step, before taking another, goes on repeating that process exactly as a productive workman. His education is spread over a longer time, and is largely diluted with routine work. This makes his situation tolerable during the long hours of the working day. It is when the rate of acquisition is pushed to the uttermost, and actual production is disregarded, that the system of long intervals of rest is most necessary.*

Here, as elsewhere, the learner's progress is vitally dependent on the absence of any other engrossing passion or pursuit. This makes it of so great consequence to have a liking for the subject.

VOCAL OR LINGUAL ACQUISITIONS.

Although the acquisitions of the articulating organs, in speech and languages, follow the very same general laws as

* I should remark, however, that it is unnatural, and on various accounts injudicious, to require an apprentice to work the full time of a fully-trained

man.

other mechanical acquirements, their importance as a branch of human intelligence claims for them a special notice. I shall advert first to the vocal exercise of singing.

65. The acquiring of musical airs and harmonies by the voice depends on the Vocal Organs, and on the Ear, aided by certain Sensibilities that may be supposed to pass beyond the

ear.

As regards the Vocal Organs themselves, the conditions are those already stated for the muscular aptitudes generally. To the first and second conditions-Vigour and Spontaneity, we must add, if not implied, natural Compass or flexibility. The third condition, the delicate Discrimination of degrees of vocal expenditure, is what most decisively operates in fine execution, as well as being the test of vocal retentiveness.

Next comes the Ear, the regulator of the effects produced by the spontaneity of the Voice. With a view to music, as already noticed, the ear must be discriminatingly sensitive to pitch, and thence to harmonies and discords. This sensitiveness guides the action of the voice, and reduces its wild utterances into regular modes productive of musical effect.

We also take for granted that a discriminative ear will be a retentive ear, so far as the retentiveness depends on the qua lity of the sense. The enjoyment derived from the art is, as in other cases, a motive to the attention.

The acquisition of Instrumental music may be explained by substituting, for the voice, the action of the hands or the mouth, other things remaining the same.

It would not be difficult to apply a test to the musical adhesiveness of different persons, by fixing upon a corresponding stage of progress, and counting the number of repetitions necessary to learn a melody.

66. In Articulate Speech, we have likewise a case of vocal execution guided by the ear, but with some differences as respects both the action and the feeling. The power of articulating includes a new series of movements, those of the mouth; while the nice graduation of the force of the chest and of the tension of the vocal chords, required in singing, is

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here dispensed with. The sensitiveness of the ear to articulate sounds partly agrees with, and partly differs from, the musical sense.

The first stage of speaking is the utterance of simple vowels, or of simple consonants with vowels attached, as wa, ma, pa, hum. The sound 'ah' is the easiest exertion of the mouth; the other vowels, e, i, o, u, are more difficult positions. The labial consonants, m, p, b, usually, but not always, precede the dental and guttural; the closing of the lips being a very easy effort. The dental letters, d, l, t, n, and the gutturals, k, g, are perhaps equally easy by nature; the aspirates are more complex and difficult. Of the vibrating sounds, the hissing action of the s is sooner arrived at than the r. For this last letter 7 and w are used, as lun, wun, for

run.

New difficulties appear in the attempts to combine two consonants into one utterance; as in syllables that begin and end with a consonant. Some of these are found easier than others; mam is easier than man, and this than mug; for the reason that it is less difficult to combine two labials, than a labial with a dental, or a guttural. The effect is seen in the word-compounds of all languages.

There are two stages in the acquirement of articulate sounds; the first is the stage of Spontaneous utterances, and the second the stage of Imitation. In both, the natural flexibility or variety of the organs must be coupled with delicacy of the ear for articulate effects, in order to make rapid progress.

The joining of syllables and words into continuous speech brings into play a further exercise of the associating principle.

We must next add the element of Intonation or Cadence. This is among the accessories of musical effect, having little in common with the principal circumstances in Music,namely, pitch, with its harmonies, and time. In speaking, the voice rises and falls in pitch, but not with any nice or measured gradation; the degrees of stress or emphasis, the alternate rise and fall, the descent and gradual subsidence at the close, are among the characteristics of cadence, or the