Under all these circumstances, we find the best teachers become discouraged, and fall into a dull routine, which truly can lead to no success.
In conclusion, I beg you to invite the piano teacher, Mr.Strict, to whom you have confided the instruction of your only daughter, Rosalie, to pay me a visit, and I will give him particular directions for a gradual development in piano-playing, up to Beethoven's op.

109 or Chopin's F minor concerto.

But I shall find him too fixed in his own theories, too much of a composer, too conceited and dogmatic, and not sufficiently practical, to be a good teacher, or to exert much influence; and, indeed, he has himself a stiff, restless, clumsy touch, that expends half its efforts in the air.

He talks bravely of etudes, scales, &c.; but the question with regard to these is _how they are taught_.

The so-called practising of exercises, without having previously formed a sure touch, and carefully and skilfully fostering it is not much more useful than playing pieces.