The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze | Page 2

impart to the schools
the spirit of ancient Greece. To Humboldt and his friends Greek studies
had been an inspiration because, apart from their intellectual

significance and literary form, those studies had been the channel of an
artistic impulse and had been entered into as art. But this artistic power
was not felt by the greater number of those who undertook, in
obedience to the new regulations, the duty of teaching Greek in the
schools. What was left in Greek studies after this failure of artistic
insight was often no more than another form of purely intellectual
discipline. A new subject had been added to the curriculum, but new
life had not been brought into the schools. The very name, Gymnasium,
which denoted their Hellenic purpose, seemed ironical. They were not
Greek in spirit and they ignored the training of the body. Thus what
Wilhelm von Humboldt had chiefly aimed at accomplishing, he failed
to do. It was not the power of Greek art that he brought into the schools
but, in most cases, merely the philological study of a second dead
language. The cause of his failure was that he had not discovered the
educational method which could effectually secure his purpose. He had
assumed that, in order to introduce the Greek spirit into education, it
was sufficient to insist upon the linguistic and literary study of Greek.
In time, attempts were made to remedy what was defective in
Humboldt's plan by insisting upon physical exercises as an obligatory
part of education in the higher schools. But the physical exercises thus
introduced, though salutary in themselves, were divorced from the
artistic influences of the Greek gymnastic. Humboldt's chief aim had
been forgotten. His system of organization had rooted itself, but his
educational ideal, to which he attached far greater importance than to
administrative regulation, was ignored.
In later years, though such Neo-Hellenism as Humboldt's had long
gone out of fashion, the weakness of the higher schools on the side of
artistic training was recognized. But a corrective for this was sought in
instruction about art, not (except so far as a little teaching of drawing
went) in the practice of an art. An attempt was made to cultivate
aesthetic appreciation by lessons which imparted knowledge but did
not attempt to train the power of artistic production--an aim which was
regarded as unrealizable, except in vocal music, and of course through
literary composition, in a secondary school. Thus Humboldt's original
purpose has been almost wholly unachieved. The schools, admirably

organized on the intellectual side and, within certain limits,
increasingly efficient in their physical training, are, as a rule, lacking in
the influence of art, as indeed in most cases are the corresponding
schools in other countries. The spring of artistic training has not been
touched. The divorce between intellectual discipline and artistic
influence (except indeed so far as the latter is operative through the
study of literature, through a little drawing, and through vocal music) is
complete. This defect is felt even more keenly in Germany than in
England, because in the German schools the intellectual pressure is
more severe, and the schools do less for the cultivation of those
interests which lie outside the limits of regular class-room work.
Wilhelm von Humboldt gave little direct attention to the work of the
elementary schools. His chief concern was with higher education. But
in the elementary schools also, except in so far as they gave much care
to vocal music, the course of training failed to make use of the
educative power of art. A conviction that there is an error has led in
Germany, as in England and America, to an increased attention to
drawing and to attempts to interest children in good pictures. But there
is still (except in the case of vocal music and a little drawing) an
unbridged gap between the intellectual and the artistic work of the
schools.
Jaques-Dalcroze's experience suggests the possibility of a much closer
combination of these two elements, both in elementary and in
secondary education. His teaching requires from the pupils a sustained
and careful attention, is in short a severe (though not exhausting)
intellectual exercise; while at the same time it trains the sense of form
and rhythm, the capacity to analyse musical structure, and the power of
expressing rhythm through harmonious movement. It is thus a synthesis
of educational influence, artistic and intellectual. Its educational value
for young children, its applicability to their needs, the pleasure which
they take in the exercises, have been conclusively proved. And in the
possibility of this widely extended use of the method lies perhaps the
chief, though far indeed from the only, educational significance of what
is now being done at Hellerau.

M. E. SADLER.
[Illustration: The College.]

RHYTHM AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION
FROM THE