dazed and astonished. The mother began to despair till an older child said, "Mother, sing the lullaby that you used to sing to her when a baby." The mother did so. At once the lost child listened, became animated, recognized her mother, and rushed into her arms. Certainly this was a case where music acted upon an enfeebled memory as a successful stimulant, when speech had entirely failed to elicit any response. A reference to such works as that of Dr. J. Solis Cohen on the throat shows what a real advance has been recently made in the knowledge and treatment of diseases of the air passages which interfere with vocal music. There has not been so much of an advance in our knowledge of the diseases of the ear. It is to be hoped that time will remedy this.

I refer here very briefly to the latest remedies for the most common affections of the throat, such as common colds from inflammations caused by exposure to low temperatures; these consist of inflammation, more or less extended and severe, of the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract. Colds are a simple yet complex matter, and need but little explanation as to what they are, since most people know all about them from their own experience.

When a singer is accustomed to "catch cold," a nightly sponge-bath of warm water containing a teaspoonful of ammonia to each pint, taken on going to bed, will so fit the skin (the largest gland in the whole body) to do its work, that taking cold is avoided five times out of six.

In Germany the inhalation of nascent chloride of ammonium has been used for chronic colds with success, but I have found it even more successful in acute colds. There are many good inhalers in the market, but that furnished by Foote & Swift, of Philadelphia, is especially adapted to the inhalation of this nascent chloride and also of menthol. Menthol, the Japanese camphor peppermint, is derived from a plant belonging to the mint family. I use it in colds in the following ways: (a) Best of all, use the inhaler mentioned. This will last for months and always be ready for use. (b) Inhale one drachm in dry crystals from the bottle in which it is contained, as one inhales "smelling salts." (c) Put it into a fold of a handkerchief or paper envelope, and thence inhale. (d) Moisten a finger with water and touch it to the menthol. Then rub the adhered menthol upon the moustache or the upper lip. If singers would use a diet consisting of two-thirds of food from the animal kingdom, and one-third of food from the vegetable kingdom, or, to express it differently, a diet composed of one mouthful of food from the vegetable kingdom to two mouthfuls of food from the animal kingdom, the system would run so smoothly as not to be upset by any changes of temperature.

In affections more severe than colds, such as local ulceration, proliferations, and irritation of the upper air passages, a laryngologist should be consulted; when this is out of the question, I recommend as a local application to the affected parts a mixture containing equal parts of the

liquor of persulphate of iron and glycerine. It should be applied by a sponge or on absorbing cotton every day or once in two days. Another excellent remedy is the ethereal tincture of iodoform (one drachm of iodoform to one ounce of ether) applied as before by a sponge or on absorbent cotton. Elsberg's throat-forceps is the best carrier for the sponge or cotton. I think the second is the better throat application of the two.

Affections of air-passages of the most serious kind must be referred to the medical practitioner. I would remark in passing that asthma and hay fever are now curable by diet and liquefying medicines; even cases of consumption come in the same category, when patients manifest enough will to govern their appetite for forbidden food, and to obey absolutely their medical adviser.

EDUCATION IN MUSIC AT HOME AND ABROAD.

BY JOHN EATON,
Commissioner of Education.

"Music," says Martin Luther, "is a master which makes the people softer and milder, more polite and more rational. It is a beautiful and noble gift of God. I would not part with what little I know of it for a great deal. You should be instructed in this art, for it makes a capable people; it is indispensable to have music taught in the school. The schoolmaster that will not teach it is not the schoolmaster for me."

It has been observed, "A man often forgets his friends, his native land, and sometimes his language, but the songs of childhood and youth never fade from his memory." Goethe bears testimony that in music the worth of art is most apparent, since it requires no material, no subjectmatter whose effect must be deducted. It is wholly good and pure, raising and ennobling whatever it expresses.

"It is a strange thing," fitly exclaims Lady Eastlake, "the subtle form and conditions of music. When the composer has conceived it in his mind, it is not there; when he has committed it to paper, it is not there; when he has called together his orchestra and choristers from the north and south, it is there, but it is gone again when they disappear. It has always, as it were, to put on immortality afresh. It is forever being born anew-born, indeed, to die and leave dead notes and dumb instruments behind. No wonder that it should have been men with shallow reasoning powers and defective musical feelings, who in the fugitiveness of the form have seen only the frivolity of the thing and tried to throw contempt upon it accordingly."

To-day few are so miserly, so materialistic in their natures, as to deny the utility of music. I do not propose to enter upon an argument for its support, or to go into an analysis of its nature, or to trace in detail. the curious and remarkable history of its development among the different races of men. I desire to limit my task to the presentation of an outline of the facts illustrating the progress and present condition of instruction in music in the schools at home and abroad-facts that I am called upon to present, not because I am a musician or teacher of music, but because they are more readily accessible in the Bureau of Education than elsewhere. In the baldest statements of facts, we should not forget that whatever we are as a people with respect to music, its teaching,

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practice, production, enjoyment, or patronage, we have had the benefit of all the past of human experience in this art. The Greeks have taught us alike in the treatise on music by Plutarch and philosophical discussions by Plato, and in their myths, which made their wise gods, Apollo and Orpheus, masters of musical instruments, with power to charm savage beasts and to command the attention of stones and trees. Thespis is said to have spoken the recitations with which he was the first to intersperse hymns, thus leading the way to the songs and chants of the drama. Sophocles accompanied the performance of his Tharmyris on the cythera. In ancient Rome we learn of numerous choristers in tragedies, including male and female voices, accompanied with many instruments. Our Sacred Scriptures bring us musical gifts from the ancient Hebrews. Miriam sang the song of triumph for her people, and to the psalms of David are due the most of our church melody. St. Ambrose (384 A. D.), who is so conspicuously associated with the progress of music in the early centuries of the Christian era, adopted in his metropolitan church at Milan the practice of dividing the verses of the psalms into responsive choruses. In the following century Boetius (475) furnished his voluminous treatise, so long the standard, though he is charged with serious errors in his discussion of the music of the Greeks. Then came, a century later, the effort of St. Gregory the Great (590), who ordained a ritual for Romne which was named Gregorian.

The northern nations of Europe are credited with making valuable contributions to the music received by them with other subjects of instruction through the Romans. Instruction in music, with which we have mainly to do, appears prominently among the Saxons and Irish. Specht, in his "History of Education in Germany from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century," acknowledges the indebtedness of that country in all subjects of instruction at that period to the Irish cloisters. In them the Latin and Greek authors were read, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy were studied, and special attention was paid to religious. poetry; but music was given a still more prominent place. Charlemagne, who secured from York for his royal school the great teacher who was the leader of education under his administration, brought teachers from Rome to the cathedral school at Metz who were masters in all the "free arts," and who paid particular attention to giving their pupils instruction in music. As a rule, it will be observed that special progress of instruction in music was closely related to the general improvements in education; the German states, though indebted to other nationalities originally, later came to lead the civilized world in the education of the masses and in their special training in music, and in our century both England and America must acknowledge their indebtedness for progress in musical instruction, as well as in the revival of education, to the German schoolmaster abroad. Dr. Brooks, who did so much to prepare the mind of the people of Massachusetts for the normal school, obtained his notions of normal training from a Prussian fellow-traveler

on an ocean voyage. Mann, Barnard, and Stowe all went to Germany, and their several works on German schools did much to aid their efforts in bringing on a revival of education among us. The writings of these and other pioneers of that movement, full of the strongest argument for general culture, were not unmindful of the importance of training in music. Horace Mann, in one of his early reports, treats the whole subject with his usual force and clearness:

The pre-adaptation of the human mind to seek and find pleasure in music, is proved by the universality with which the vocal art has been practiced among men. Each nation and each age steps forward as a separate witness to prove the existence of musical faculties and desires in the race. In cultivating music, therefore, are we not following one of the plainest and most universal indications of nature—the order of that Being by whose wisdom and benevolence nature was constituted? The Creator has made the human mind susceptible to emotions which can find no adequate expression but in song. Among all nations joy has its chorus and sorrow its dirge. Patriotism exults over national triumphs in national songs; and religious yearning vainly strives to pour out its full tide of thanksgiving to its Maker, until anthem and hallelujah take the rapt spirit upon their wings and bear it to the throne of God. Nature not only points, as it were, her finger toward the universal culture of the musical art, but she has bestowed upon all men the means of cultivating it; the voice and the ear are universal endowments.

He calls to mind the instinct of music as well as the instinct of archi tecture, painting, and sculpture. He points out the cost of gratification in these several departments of the fine arts, and the inexpensiveness of obtaining a wealth of song, present at all times, unburdensome, a means of gratuitous solace, an inexpensive luxury, whose peculiar attribute is not to grow old, nor weary the oft-listening sense, nor pall apon the oft-attentive mind. But we are not left to speculation and inference as to the beneficial effects of vocal music in public schools. The universal practice of music in most of the schools of the German states for a long series of years is an experiment sufficient of itself to settle the question of its utility. Probably it is not the least efficient among the means by which the schools of Prussia are kept in such admirable order with so rare a resort to corporal punishment. The whole country is vocal with music. It adds zest to social amusement. saves the people from boisterous and riotous passions. Pervading all classes, it softens and refines the national character. It is the recreation of the student after his severe mental exertion, and it cheers on the laborer sweating at his toil.

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Again, he points out, first, how vocal music promotes health; second, how vocal music furnishes the means of intellectual exercise; third, he observes that the social and moral influences of music far transcend in value all its physical or intellectual utilities. It holds a natural relationship or affinity with peace, hope, affection, generosity, charity, devotion. There is, also, a natural repugnance between music and fear, envy, malevolence, misanthropy. In ancient mythology, Nemesis and the Furies never sung. Napoleon, after subduing the physical force of the Egyptians, proposed to perpetuate his power by a mastery over