The Etude magazine, Nov. 1908, p. 701
DO A LITTLE EACH DAY BY CAROL SHERMAN IN my classes I frequently find that the reason why so many of my best pupils have periods of discouragemnet is that they try to do too much at one time. They are very ambitious and seem disappointed if I give them a short passage to study. They almost invariably want far more than they are able to do. They are unwilling to go slowly. It is a part of their Americanism. I often tell them that I wish that I had a geat flying machine that would take them all over to Germany just for one day. They wouldn't find the kind of instruction given them very different except for the fact that we American teachers seek to get results from our pupils by making them interested instead of making them obey like trained animals, but my little foreign excursion party would at least find that the German children get their great results by working slowly and steadily. They do a little each day and they always do that little well.
The great Beethoven said, "Drops of water wear away a stone in time, not by force but by continued falling. Only through tireless industry are the sciences achieved, so that one can truthfully say: no day without its line, nulla dies sine linea."
It does not do to plod everlastingly, however. There are some days when you feel so well that you can accomplish much more. Take advantage of those days, they are rare times and can be made the milestones of your artistic career.
