In using Hans Wessely's edition of the Kreutzer Etudes, and the special exercises by Franz Kneisel ("Advanced Exercises for the Violin"), I have found that a great many students experience difficulty in carrying out the excellent instructions therein given for acquiring a correct position of the left hand (retaining the fingers in their places), owing to insufficient attention to the correct placing of the fingers during the years of elementary and preparatory study. Students who follow faithfully the instructions given in this edition of Dont's Studies will find themselves repaid — when ready to take up the Kreutzer Etudes — by having acquired the correct position of the left hand, without which a reliable technic cannot be attained.