Youth is the seed-time of life, and from its sowing we reap our life's harvest; for, "As we sow, so shall we reap."

The humdrum of school life is a reason not often taken into account for the irregular and limited attendance of children whose parents are indifferent, and allow their children to do as they please; for such children singing would make school life more cheerful and the children more happy, and thus indirectly prevent truancy. We still bear in mind that pleasure and interest go hand in hand with advancement. Singing is of great value as a means of enlarging the chest and developing the lungs, thus preventing consumption and other lung diseases. Singing quickens the circulation, and promotes the health of the entire body, and especially puts new life into the brain, and so fits it for better study.

Singing in school is indirectly a great help to congregational singing in churches, and to the music of Sunday schools. It is enjoined that we sing with the understanding as well as with the spirit. "Music is the vehicle for, and incentive to, religious feeling." Nearly every child (about 95 per cent.) can learn music, and enjoy its elevating and practical benefits. The youngest children are the proper ones to begin with, and the primary school is the best place. Of most studies the pupil makes no immediate use; he is being fitted for the future activities of life; but what he learns of music is useful from the first. Our best musicians advocate vocal music as a foundation for an education in instrumental music. Children who sing know the essence of music, and the instrumental teacher has but to instruct in the signs of the staff and the technique of the instrument. Schumann says, "Sing frequently in choruses, especially on the middle parts. This makes you musical. Exert yourself, even though you have but little voice, to sing: at sight without the aid of your instrument; by this means the quickness of your ear will constantly increase. But, if you have a good voice, neglect no opportunity of cultivating it; consider it as the most valuable gift that Heaven has conferred on you." Experience proves the value of knowing how to sing as a help to the better playing of an instrument.

Channing says, "No man receives the true culture of a man, in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and I know of no condition of life from which it should be excluded." Music is a universal language. Where speech fails, then music begins. It is the natural medium for the expression of our emotions-the art that expresses in tones our feelings which are too strong and deep to be expressed in words. The Rev. H. R. Haweis, author of "Music and Morals" and of "My Musical Memories," says:

The future mission of music for the million is the discipline of emotion. What is the ruin of art? Ill-regulated emotion. What is the ruin of life? Again, ill-regulated emotion. What mars happiness? What destroys manliness? What sullies womanhood? What checks enterprise? What spoils success? Constantly the same→ ill-regulated emotion. There is one thing more important than knowing,

self: It is to govern self. People get drunk because they have nothing else to do; they beat their wives because their minds are narrow, their tastes brutal, their emotions, in a word, ill-regulated; they spend their wages because they have no self-control; they dawdle in public houses where money must be spent, simply in the absence of all other resources; and they starve in winter because they have not acquired the habit of steady work, which is impossible without study and wholesome recreation, or that steady thrift and self-control which is impossible apart from disciplined' emotion. The question of music for the people will some day become a great government question. There are millions whose only use of emotional life is base, undisciplined, and degraded. Pleasure with many means crime; restraint, the real handmaid of pleasure, is unknown; system, order, harmony in their feelings, habits of self-control, checking the impulses, moderating and economizing the feelings, guiding them to powerful purposes and wise ends and wholesome joys-of all this our masses are chiefly ignorant; yet all this, music would mightily help to teach and give. It is obvious that we are, when we hear music intelligently and sympathetically, actually cultivating abstract habits of mind, which may afterward be transferred as trained forces to the affairs of daily life. As the study of Euclid trains the mind in the abstract, so the study of music trains the emotion in the abstract. If you want to touch and train this emotional life, music is your all-powerful ally.

In all the states of Europe vocal music takes a leading place in the school curriculum, and patriotism would suggest that we do not let our country be the last to make the study of vocal music as universal in our public schools. Our progressive country should lead in so important a branch of education.

Foreign society and governments are founded and continued on the policy of doing as little as possible for the common people, and of richly sustaining the favored few at the cost of the great mass of their subjects. Still the governments have for several generations taught singing to their children. In many of the schools of Europe music is taught more hours per week than any other study. Do we not see a reason for this in the practical importance of music in its every day influence, in making the people better, happier, and more contented citizens? When the despotic sovereigns of Europe make so marked a use of music, to insure contentment among their masses, can our free Republic afford to ignore so important a help to the happiness and welfare of its sovereign freemen?

WHY VOCAL MUSIC SHOULD BE REQUIRED BY THE STATE AS A PART OF PUBLIC SCHOOL INSTRUCTION.

BY GEORGE A. VEAZIE, JR., ESQ.,

Supervisor of Music, Chelsea (Mass.) Public Schools.

I hope to see every State in the Union, sooner or later, place the study of vocal music on the same plane with the other elementary branches, i. e., make its introduction and maintenance compulsory upon every school board throughout the State.

This proposition would have the ultimate approval of every man, woman, and child, who had been in any way, directly or indirectly, and without prejudice, cognizant of the successful results attending the systematic study of vocal music in the public schools of the United States. The earnestness of teachers, both special and regular, in this direction, cannot be lightly passed by; it is soul-born, and as such is deserving.

But what is our experience? For I am persuaded that my experience of the last fifteen years is but a complement of that of many others. Brightened, as it always may be, in the pleasant intercourse of teacher and class, it is, on the other hand, too frequently clouded by the willful persistency of those who block the wheels of progress, themselves ignorant of music, perhaps, even in its lowest forms; susceptible in no way to its kindly influence; unable to perceive in the remotest degree its bearing upon the disposition and the entire nature of the child, in creating within its breast a love for the beautiful and the good, in preference to that which is ignoble and bad; shutting their eyes in stubborn blindness to everything but their own egotism, and their worship of that monstrous crudity-the theory of bread-and-butter studies; antagonistic to all else beyond the limits of the "three R's," and fighting to the bitter end every suggested expenditure for anything beyond.

Such clouds are without doubt constantly within the horizon of every school committee-man's experience; they darken the days of many teachers in special branches, and in the study of vocal music in particular; the chief cause being the fact that this study is optional with city or town, a vulnerable point.

A school committee-man who may favor this study, however loyal to his convictions, has no power behind him, as he has in the case of the prescribed branches; his compeers also know the weakness of his posi tion, and just so long as his adherents are in the minority, it is only by courtesy, as a rule, that any progress is made. I do not think that I am stating the case too strongly, for I know of instances where the study has been dropped from the course when its advocates, wearied in their

persistent but futile endeavors, at last gave way in despair. I believe firmly that in all cases where the study has been discontinued it is because of this antagonism, which has no basis of truth in its assaults, and not because of an unsuccessful result of its trial.

This is why I wish, and I have every reason to believe that every friend of this study would wish, to have it taken from the list of optional studies and placed upon an equal footing with those in the required course. It would relieve the local committee-man of a grave responsibility, in his own eyes at least (an honest conviction, doubtless, but that has sent many an unfortunate to the stake before now), and it would place this study where it rightfully belongs. It would then become the duty of the local committee to so perfect this study as to graduate scholars who could teach singing in common with the other branches, and thus finally reduce the cost of supervision to a minimum.

In my own schools, out of 72 teachers in the primary and grammar schools, 67 possess the ability requisite to drill their pupils daily in the singing exercises assigned; 17 out of the 67 have been pupils in the schools under my direction; the other 50, most of whom were teachers at the time I took the schools sixteen years ago, have learned the elements of music as I have taught them to their classes; knowing nothing of the art (with one or two exceptions) when they began, they are now capable teachers in that direction. This has enabled me by degrees to reduce my visits in the primary schools from twice a week to once in three weeks, and in the lower grades of grammar schools to once in two weeks; so that where our city formerly employed and paid me for the entire school session, four whole and two half days, I am now engaged for only five half days, with a corresponding reduction in salary. It is probably only a question of time as to a still further reduction; in fact, it is certain, if the option is withdrawn by the State. I am not writing this paper directly in my own interest, but in the interest of the future men and women of our Republic; for I truly believe that with a realization of my desires and the desires of all who agree with me in the direction named, will come the dawning of a brighter era in the social and political relations of our States, as within and among themselves. I cannot better explain myself here than by quoting from the report (1883) of our music committee.

Let it be understood that music is not taught in our schools for what it may bring to the pupil in mere temporal advancement, though, whatever may be gained in this direction, should the scholar finally make music a profession, is to his advantage. The training of the voice and the ear, and the formation of a correct musical taste through the medium of pure models of musical composition adapted in all grades of school work to the ability of the young singer, is the underlying principle of this noble endeavor, and every child is made the better for participating in the musical exercise with a conscious ability. Its spiritual nature is broadened and deepened unconsciously, and thus made more painfully sensitive to the assaults of evil, and much more ready to welcome the benign influences for good, with which our civilized world is blessed.

The spirit of the last sentence of this quotation is the key-note of this whole paper; it is truly the spirit in which I write.

THE EDUCATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS IN THE

ART OF SINGING.

BY N. COE STEWART,

Principal Teacher of Music in the Public Schools, Cleveland, Ohio.

That all children, when properly taught, can understand the elements of music, and can learn to sing new music at sight as well as they can learn to read and to understand writing and print, has been as clearly demonstrated as anything can be. That such has not been always the case where teaching music has been attempted, is also true. But that all children do so learn where right methods are employed and properly carried out, proves that the failures were either in the methods or in the teaching, or in both. It is equally true that children, through music-study in school, can learn to use their voices correctly, thus training the entire vocal apparatus for reading and speech, as well as for song.

It is true, also, that children can learn to sing with taste and expression; that they may acquire a fondness for good music and for singing, and that they will, through proper musical training, become as much more refined, cultivated, and useful, than they otherwise would be, as it is possible for any one pursuit to achieve. In fact, their whole training is not complete without this element.

The desirability of this condition of things, both as far as the individual himself, and the social and religious organizations of society are concerned, will be conceded by all who desire the highest and best standard of manhood and social life. The question then is, How, with our present generally low estimation of music and the uses of music, can teachers be educated who will introduce correct music teaching, and carry it on through a sufficient period of years to work out in the pupils the state of things desired?

If pupils understand the subject, and if they make intelligent and protracted effort to learn to sing and to do whatever is required, they will succeed as surely as in any other case wherein nature gives results as a consequence of intelligent activity.

The work of the teacher is to aid the pupils in understanding the subject, and to guide them in the necessary drill or practice. Is the matter practical?

Can the regular school teachers be so trained that they can instruct and drill the vast army of children that is growing up in the schools of the country?