The book is organized in chapters that are purposely presented by grade level, rather than by the several related factors involved in teaching music to children. The author believes that the child at any grade level, together with the world about him, including the classroom and the curriculum, must be considered as a whole, and cannot be broken down into isolated segments which may fit together into a unified picture, but are just as likely not to fit smoothly together, producing often a blurred over-all picture, full of omissions, duplications, and inconsistencies; second, by considering first the entire elementary music program, then the two three-year groupings seperately, and finally each grade by itself, we are progressing logically from the whole to the part, and presenting each part in its relationship to the whole; third, for the benefit of the elementary teacher who is primarily concerned with only one grade level, any particular grade can be studied individually withour reading the entire book.