GRAMOPHONES—AND WHY NOT? 213

second to the gramophone as evidence of the degradation,
of musical taste in India.

One great disadvantage of mechanical instruments is
the facility they afford to the undisciplined and untrained
mind to attempt the work of the true musician. A few
rupees spent on a gramophone, a few months spent in,
playing with one finger on a harmonium, and the half-
educated philistine of to-day is prepared to dispense with
the services of the interpreters of national music, disciplined
by years of study and training to the expression of the
highest ideals of the race consciousness.

It will be seen that the use of the harmonium 'is only
in a degree less vicious. Easy to learn, it degrades popular
taste almost as effectively as the gramophone displaces the
trained musician, and destroys the true character
of Indian music, and fche voice-quality even of the trained
musician who makes use of it. These two instruments, if
care be not taken, will in a few years more complete the
vulgarisation of Indian music.

The highest ideal of nationality is that of service*
India, by the scorn which she has cast upon her own arts*
by the degradation of standard in her own culture, here
sufficiently evidenced by the possibility of finding pleasure
in a gramophone or a harmonium, is casting aside this
highest privilege of service. Nations are judged not by
what they assimilate, but by what they contribute to
human culture. India, by her blindness to the beauty
that till yesterday was everywhere in and around her in
art and music, is forfeiting this privilege of service.
Eor no man of another nation will come to learn of India?
if her teachers be gramophones and harmoniums a-nd
imitators of European