The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze At Hellerau two things make an ineffaceable impression upon the mind-the exquisite beauty of movement, of gesture and of grouping seen in the exercises; and the nearness of a great force, fundamental to the arts and expressing itself in the rhythm to which they attain. Jaques-Dalcroze has re-opened a door which has long been closed. He has rediscovered one of the secrets of Greek education. When we try to picture to ourselves the intellectual and moral state of ...
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The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze At Hellerau two things make an ineffaceable impression upon the mind-the exquisite beauty of movement, of gesture and of grouping seen in the exercises; and the nearness of a great force, fundamental to the arts and expressing itself in the rhythm to which they attain. Jaques-Dalcroze has re-opened a door which has long been closed. He has rediscovered one of the secrets of Greek education. When we try to picture to ourselves the intellectual and moral state of Europe in the Middle Ages, some fixed and almost stereotyped ideas immediately suggest themselves. We think of the nations immersed in a gross mental lethargy; passively witnessing the gradual extinction of arts and sciences which Greece and Rome had splendidly inaugurated; allowing libraries and monuments of antique civilisation to crumble into dust; while they trembled under a dull and brooding terror of coming judgment, shrank from natural enjoyment as from deadly sin, or yielded themselves with brutal eagerness to the satisfaction of vulgar appetites. Preoccupation with the other world in this long period weakens man's hold upon the things that make his life desirable. Philosophy is sunk in the slough of ignorant, perversely subtle disputation upon subjects destitute of actuality. Theological fanaticism has extinguished liberal studies and the gropings of the reason after truth in positive experience.
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