Page:Fugue by Ebenezer Prout.djvu/66

113. In concluding this chapter it is needful to give the student a most urgent warning with regard to the use of this book. It is not written as a "cram" for examinations; and although all the rules given in the present chapter are founded upon the practice of the great masters and enforced by their example, yet in the present condition of musical examinations, any student who attempts to carry into practice the principles here given will almost inevitably be "ploughed." The old theorists mostly follow one another blindly, like a flock of sheep through a hedge; and examiners in general adhere to the musty rules of two hundred years ago, taking little or no account of the progress made by music since that time. The old rules have therefore been in all cases given in this chapter, and those who are going up for examination had better adhere to them until examiners become more enlightened and liberal. Our object in this, as in the other volumes of this series, has been to found our teaching on the practice of the great composers who have brought our art to its present state of advancement; but Bach himself breaks far too many of the antiquated rules to have had much chance of passing, had he gone up for a Doctor's degree at one of our universities.