Dr Suzuki realized that although Japanese is one of the most difficult languages to learn, most Japanese kids managed to learn to speak it.  They watched their parents and practiced until they could reproduce the sounds that they heard. 

At this time he also noticed that musical prodigies:  Young children who learned to play instruments beautifully, were for the most part from rich families.  Families that could afford to go to concerts or own recordings of beautiful music. He wondered: if all children were given the opportunities to hear great music every day and to have child sized violins to play on, if every child could learn to play the violin.