106/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
Considerate parents are careful that their children shall be placed under the influence of wholesome books, good companions, and healthful amusements; for the impressions largely subconscious acquired from those sources help to formulate character and determine the course of subsequent life. Children seldom appreciate the full significance of all that comes within their observation.
Long before they are able to detect the real meaning of pictures, or comprehend the situations they represent, they are capable of absorbing something of their atmosphere. Before they think of analyzing the aims and motives of their older associates, they form attachments and discriminate in traits of character. Yet music is the most subtle and powerful of all agencies in shaping character.
It is capable of doing not only immense good, but enormous mischief as well. The craving for it is inborn in nearly all human beings. Not only has it “charms to soothe the savage breast,” but it affects, in some degree, even the lower orders of creation. Certain concordant or discordant combinations are known to delight or distress animals.
Music appeals to people of all classes and conditions savage and civilized, ignorant and educated, vicious and respectable. It flourishes alike in the slums and in the most cultured circles. It is of the utmost concern, then, whether the lower, or the higher instincts are catered to, in seeking to satisfy this hunger.
It is frequently contended that music of the best quality is too abstruse and intricate to be appreciated by the average listener; that it is ill-adapted to the needs of the general public, whose tastes are better satisfied with a less substantial sort of entertainment.
A twofold misconception of the nature of music lies at the root of this argument; for it assumes that quality is in some way related to difficulty, complexity, elaborateness; and, also, that music must be understood to be enjoyed or appreciated. But it is a fact that many of the simplest airs have become immortal.
Simplicity characterizes much that is grand in both Art and Nature. One need not seek long to find good music suited, in point of technical difficulty, to the capabilities of the most unpretentious player. Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and a host of other composers of high rank have furnished an inexhaustible supply of such material.