It is, indeed, incredible that so great an art as piano and violin playing should have arrived at so high a stage of perfection without a previous training of the muscles. As a matter of course, this is only to be ascribed to the unremitting exertions and the indefatigable zeal of the teachers, and to the unwearying industry of the pupils. And how much easier might this have been attained! The muscles, ligaments, and tendons consist of soft elastic matter, and, as has been stated, run partly _longitudinally_, partly _transversely_. This is a point to be borne in mind. It is, therefore, one-sided and erroneous to believe that the best means of strengthening the muscles consists in simply raising and dropping the fingers. All one-sided practice is hurtful; and an exercise of the fingers limited to an upward and downward movement, occasions much severe work. If, on the other hand, the muscles be moved according to physiological principles, in all directions, both laterally and up and down, and trained gymnastically, they will become within a very short time strong and flexible. CHAPTER VIII. ARTISTS AND TEACHERS OF MUSIC. If any one should say that he has diligently studied the piano and violin after the method used at present, and in course of time has learned and taught it with the greatest success, without having found it necessary to trouble himself about any other system, my reply is, that music is one of the most beautiful, and with respect to muscular work, the most difficult of arts, and that all the arts and sciences, music not excepted, have made enormous strides in advance during the present century. But exactly because music has become a universal boon for all classes of the civilized world, one ought to be so much the less disposed to shut out new ideas respecting it, from whatever side they may come. The representatives of this art, professional musicians and teachers of music, are generally the most active and often the most educated men, who devote their lives to the art, and promote it in a way which is hardly acknowledged sufficiently by the musical world. The most highly honoured, however, are those who have made the greatest progress in theory and in practice, or who have readily and generously acknowledged such progress, from whatever direction it might come.