Fourth: The melody begets spiritual impressions.
Fifth: The gestures, feeling, and melody unite in giving a sweet and
gentle intercourse, in developing love for labor, home, country,
associates, and dumb animals, and in unconsciously directing the
intellectual powers.
Learning to sing well is the best possible means of learning to speak
well, and the exquisite precision which music gives to kindergarten
play destroys all rudeness, and does not in the least rob it of its
fun or merriment.
"We cannot tell how early the pleasing sense of musical cadence
affects a child. In some children it is blended with the earliest,
haziest recollection of life at all, as though they had been literally
'cradled in sweet song;' and we may be sure that the hearing of
musical sounds and singing in association with others are for the
child, as for the adult, powerful influences in awakening sympathetic
emotion, and pleasure in associated action."
Who can see the kindergarten games, led by a teacher who has grown
into their spirit, and ever forget the joy of the spectacle? It brings
tears to the eyes of any woman who has ever been called mother,
or ever hopes to be; and I have seen more than one man retire
surreptitiously to wipe away his tears.
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