At Hellerau two things make an ineffaceable impression upon the mind—the exquisite beauty of movement, of gesture and of grouping seen in the exercises; and the nearness of a great force, fundamental to the arts and expressing itself in the rhythm to which they attain. Jaques-Dalcroze has re-opened a door which has long been closed. He has rediscovered one of the secrets of Greek education.

A hundred years ago Wilhelm von Humboldt endeavoured to make Greek ideals the paramount influence in the higher schools of Germany. He and a group of friends had long felt indignant at the utilitarianism and shallowness of the work of the schools. In Greek literature, Greek philosophy and Greek art would be found a means of kindling new life in education and of giving it the power of building up strong and independent personalities. When there came to Humboldt the unexpected opportunity of reforming the secondary schools of Prussia, he so remodelled the course of study as to secure for Greek thought and letters a place which, if not central and determinative, would at least bring the Élite of the younger generation in some measure under their influence. But his administrative orders failed to 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.

The College.