_Symbolism._ The main function of the great musician is to make his music symbolic. He must take the listener out of the humdrum attitudes of life through the avenue of musical feeling into a state of abandon, which, in its extreme form, approaches ecstasy and obliviousness to material surroundings and facts. Even the devices of program music give but remote and stilted aid. His function is to enable the listener to live the art as he himself lives it symbolically. In this respect he differs from the sculptor and the painter who, while cultivating this symbolic attitude, are clearly held to the necessity of utilizing objective realities. It is not easy for the musician to take himself out of this mood. At the moment that he talks shop and business, the symbolizing habit is constantly pressing in upon him. Through his mastery of the symbolic life he feels rich, exclusive, powerful, and self-contained. Some people think that is queer. _Precocity._ Since, as a rule, the musically gifted are proportionately precocious, they begin early in childhood to realize their peculiar gift for musical appreciation, individual interpretation, and often fabulous child performance as more or less child prodigies. This tendency to become a prodigy is inherent in musical precocity and starting early makes him conspicuous as a child, interferes with his adaptation to the behavior of the common man, and leads to a specialization and intensification of those elements which gain for him the approbation of his constituency, a following for the hero, and towering admiration. On the other hand, it makes him an object of ridicule. Usually it is the narrowly-educated musician that is strikingly temperamental. To excel in his art, supreme effort has often centered upon that goal at the sacrifice of a broadening education and the development of a well-rounded and healthy-minded personality. Current academic recognition of music and improved facilities for training will decrease the number of temperamental musicians. After all, temperament is not all a gift: it is largely acquired through learning in the school of hard knocks. It is often a cheap imitation. What then is the musical temperament? It is a species of the artistic behavior found in all artistic pursuits, arising partly from heredity and partly from training, environment, and simulation; intensified by high sensitivity, highly-strung disposition, dominant ear-mindedness, emotional strain, lopsided education, pursuit of esthetic goals, leadership and hero worship, and often a forced precocity.