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Therefore, if it be the aim of any person to practise
music with skill and judgment, let him imitate the ancient
[p. 126]
manner; let him also adorn it with those other sciences,
and make philosophy his tutor, which is sufficient to judge
what is iii music decent and useful. For music being generally divided into three parts, diatonic, chromatic, and
enharmonie, it behooves one who comes to learn music
to understand poetry, which uses these three parts, and to
know how to express his poetical inventions in proper
musical form.
First therefore we are to consider that all musical learning is a sort of habituation, which does not teach the
reason of her precepts at one and the same time to the
learner. Moreover, we are to understand that to such an
education there is not requisite an enumeration of its several divisions, but every one learns by chance what either
the master or scholar, according to the authority of the
one and the liberty of the other, has most affection for.
But the more prudent sort reject this chance-medley way
of learning, as the Lacedaemonians of old, the Mantineans, and Pallenians, who, making choice either of one
single method or else but very few styles, used only that
sort of music which they deemed most proper to regulate the inclinations of youths.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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