The student of today has posed many a problem for us, and the better educated, more liberated students of the 1980s will not pose fewer problems. The students must be listened to, but not capitulated to, if in the process we lose our direction toward aesthetic education. Bernstein so well analyzed student potentials and problems in his discussion of the ”Principle of Hope, the Not-Yet-Happened,” in the Music Educators Journal. He explained student unrest, student apathy, and student despair so clearly, yet when talking of student artists' capacities he stated:
“It's the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers, who will ultimately save us, who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing, and shout the big dreams. Only the artist can turn the ‘Not-Yet’ into reality.”
The audience, at least one of our major reasons for performing, has appeared to be shrinking. In reality our potential audience members are probably being selective and going where they can find what they think is the best. We have become mediocre in trying to find and perform some of everything they think is the best. We have lost them to recorded music, where the quality has not been diluted by our trying to be Jacks-of-all-Trades.
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