Songs Games And Rhymes
For The Nursery, Kindergarten & Primary School

More that 200 songs with lyrics & Sheet music

	----------------------><2&+---------------— To parents, kindergarteners, and primary teachers, these songs and games are presented with the hope that they will in some measure satisfy the demand for a wholesome, elevating kind of music, and for words suited to the thoughts and feelings of very young children. The cultivation of the music sense should begin in earliest childhood, but like all begin­nings the task is both difficult and delicate. If 'it be neglected during the first few years, it is scarcely possible to re-arouse it. To meet this need in earliest infancy is the justification for the hand and finger games contained in this book. The infant's cry for suitable physical en­vironment adapted to his delicate organization, is no more imperative than his restless, ner­vous appeal for simple, intellectual and emotional means of self-activity. It is at this period that the bent of the musical nature is determined, a nature in which all the phases of being are in active efficient harmony, attuned to sympathetic responsiveness. The cultivation of the feelings at an early age, is therefore of the greatest importance, and no one agent is so eifective as appropriate music and suitable words. To harmonize music and verbal speech in such a way as to make them a part of the child, at the same time appealing to his highest, best self, is to furnish the means for the promotion of morality and religion. To establish such a character in childhood and youth is the burden of modern educational thought. Train the thoughts and feelings, and conduct will take care of itself. Rhythm is the frame-work of music. Upon it are built the various combinations of melo­dy and harmony. The frame-work may be hidden in the beauties of the superstructure, but is none the less essential. The music of primitive people is little else than an elaborate system of time-beating. The child mind in its gradual unfolding presents similar character­istics of growth, the rhythmic sense being the first in the order of development. The love of rhymes and jingles is as natural to children as the desire to play. It is child-study of articulation and poetic thought, This should be accepted as a fact, and opportuni­ty for the gratification of this inclination afforded; not, however, at the expense of other fea­tures of mental development. Children too often learn in the nursery, kindergarten, and school things which in later life they are obliged to unlearn. "Baby-talk," incorrect speech, ques­tionable morality, cruelty to animals are too often the lessons—no doubt, unintentionally, taught in the story or song. If the same care which is bestowed upon the essays of high school graduates, were given to the music and literature which we offer our little children, we should soon lessen the demand for the sensational fiction that fills our public libraries and for the maudlin love songs and trashy dance music that disgrace our music rooms. The musical taste is one of the surest indications of disposition, because of its intensely subjective nature. A person may be more fully *nown by the music he likes, than by the coat he wears or the books he reads, IV