My training in music composition focuses quite a bit on Famous Dead People; but using examples from their music. It's a case of "This is how Bach/Beethoven/Brahms/Schoenberg did this, it proved effective, you can possibly learn from it." We're not expected to write in pastiche styles however, rather to approach more fundamental issues of writing music with methods that have been shown to work.

I can't really see any other way TO approach it; the reason that Bach's strong basslines work is rooted in how humans perceive sound. The easiest way to pass this on is to provide examples.

EDIT: That said, I'd be interested in reading that Hindemith book. (Hilariously, in light of the current discussion, it's because he's a composer I'm interested in - a Famous Dead Person.) My supervisor wrote a paper on Hindemith's approach to teaching counterpoint, but I didn't realize he had textbooks.