THE TALKING MACHINE AS AN EDUCATOR.

Shannon News, 6 March 1923, Page 3

THE TALKING MACHINE AS AN EDUCATOR.

During the last two decades the attention of educational authorities throughout the world has been directed to the need for broadening tl;e cultural foundation of the schools, and music has become recognised as affording an unsurpassable basis foi' general culture. But musical art has in the .past been the property almost exclusively of those who possess executive musical talent; that is, of a very few, comparatively speaking. Good listeners, however, are the greatest need, for trained, intelligent listeners alone can constitute the public audience with the musician, creative or executive, must. have. Good listeners again are simply those who have been “exposed” to a sufficient quantity of music, who have, in fact, become' familiar with it by much hearing and ;some intelligent guidance. The making of such listeners must naturally begin in the schoolroom with the rising generation. Here the talking machine finds its place in the school. By its aid musical culture is taught to thousands who, otherwise might never hear an orchestral performance or an orchestral instrument. By its use ’ children are taught to know and love music, to sing and play for themselves, to want more and better music in their daily lives. Within a few years the educational side of the talking machine has assumed outstanding importance and to-day there is hardly a town of any size in the country which does not include. at lease some talking machine equipment among the items of its educational tool shop, making the talking machine, without a doubt, one of the most potential forces in modern education.

The value of the talking machine in this special field is, i fact, only beginning. The day is at hand when the value of this system of conveying instruction and' artistic, enjoymet to every corer of the earth will be recognised everywhere,, as supreme and as no more to be emitted from the schon'uC’fh than the blackboard or the maps.