the education of the will. Singing and the art of music should therefore not be withheld from the young.

However great the pedagogical value of instruction in singing may be estimated, it can not be admitted that it follows musical laws exclusively, or satisfies its own demands alone. Consideration for the general aim of educational factors makes it necessary for instruction in singing to keep in touch with other studies. Its texts make this possible. Instruction can be purely musical only with reference to melody, rhythm, and dynamics, while with reference to the text it must consult the sentiments expressed as well as the special claims of school life. Where this rule is observed, the songs to be practiced are adapted to feelings and moods of the pupils awakened by preceding lessons. They are then received with more interest, sung with greater feeling, and a deeper meaning is attached to their study. A lasting disposition of mind can be awakened by instruction only when the subject treated, to which interest is attached, is of such a nature that it appears of value not only to the child but also to the adult.

The greatest attention must therefore be paid to the selection of texts. Only such songs should be chosen in which text and melody are æsthetic, and have been proved to be productions of true poetical and musical art. Moreover, texts and melodies should be in proportioned relation to individuality of mind and vocal organ; otherwise songs can never become flesh and blood, so to speak; or, as the psychologist has it, can never be apperceived by children.

If these claims are justified, the elementary schools must abandon all attempts at presenting and studying complicated works, as well as songs of four parts, as they are above the capacity of the pupils. They must also set aside all songs specially composed and set to music for "school purposes," because they are seldom poetic in thought or musical in form, and, as a rule, rarely meet the requirements of a noble art. Moralizing songs must likewise be omitted, since they never originate in a healthy, strong, or vigorous sensibility, and therefore soon become distasteful to children. The source upon which instruction for people's schools should draw, can and must be no other than the national song, sacred or profane (secular).

"National songs are irreproachable music of God's grace; their author and contents are everywhere and at all times the same-the nation itself and the spirit of national life embodied in song. Whatever events excite national feeling, whatever affects the heart of the people, or is treasured in its mind in thoughtful moods, forms the inexhaustible contents of its songs and life.”—(A. B. Marx.) The architecture of the national song is so transparent and so simple, the glorified deeds and events celebrated appear so plastic to the eye in their poetic garb, that it seems highly adapted to a child's perception; it is besides an inexhaustible spring of aesthetic and moral pleasure, truly classic in form and content, and never losing its magnetic force and its vivifying and refreshing charm for the mind.

Only those national songs (which term includes some of our church hymns) should be accepted as suitable for elementary schools which in the course of time have been permanently appropriated by the people, and have entered abidingly into mind and heart.

The sacred church hymn must be sung and studied in its original form, which is rhythmic. Melody, rhythm, and text are the essential elements of every song, and can not be separated without offending a cultivated ear. They exert a beneficial influence on taste and excite resthetic pleasure only when they cooperate and leave the impression of mutuality. The movement and complexity of the rhythmic hymn is conformable to musical law, and therefore uniform; the restfulness and sameness of the hymn without meter and proper tempo end in a monotony calculated neither to thrill nor to animate. The hymn without rhythm dates from the time in which the life of the church and religious feeling had degenerated, and therefore can never be considered the result of a healthy, historical development. It is the consequence of religious indifference, and an idle self-relinquishment. That the rhythmic hymn is not above the ability and comprehension of the pupils in elementary schools is

sufficiently proved by the fact that many of our national songs, as they are sung in schools, display as great a diversity in rhythmic forms and as much interchange of accentuated and quantitative rhythm as the rhythmic hymn. The fact that church congregations in a large part of the Empire observe the rules of rhythm in their singing goes to prove that no insurmountable obstacle prevents its adoption in the course of school singing.

Material for instruction in singing may be divided into the poetical and the musical. The poetical half, the texts of songs, should be derived from object and language lessons. These studies should be so arranged that before a child begins to learn the singing of a song it has already become acquainted with the form and contents of the text. Where instruction in singing has not received this consideration, it must analyze the text. A systematic acquisition of the text by the mind of the pupils-not mere thoughtless memorizing-must under all circumstances be insisted upon. Neither in language nor in singing lessons should an incomprehensible jumble of mere words be permitted.

The chief duty of instruction in singing is to give out the melody, and in such a way that the pupils not only understand it, but are capable of repeating it with technical correctness. Involuntary pleasure on the part of the pupil created by the melody is to be developed gradually to æsthetic pleasure based upon comprehension. This is possible only when the pupils are made to understand the technique of music in an elementary way. Hence it will not suffice to teach by rote songs of one and two parts, but the elements of melodics, dynamics, and rhythm must be taught, supplemented, perhaps, by the barest elements of harmony.

DETAILS OF THE AMERICAN METHOD OF TEACHING SINGING.

Before the very successful mode of teaching singing in German schools is presented in detail it may be well to quote an American opinion on this subject. Dr. Edward Brooks, superintendent of public schools of Philadelphia, in a special report to the board of education of that city described the methods in vogue in America. This report, by showing how singing is taught in some cities, incidentally bears witness to the advanced state of method in this country. The author says:

Two distinct systems of reading vocal music have been current among musicians and have divided the judgment of the musical world. These two systems have cach intelligent and earnest advocates, and it is therefore necessary to compare their merits and reach a conclusion as to which one is best suited to the work of the elementary schools.

The method of staff intervals.-The old system, which may be called the Italian system, taught singers to read music by the intervals of the staff, somewhat as in playing an instrument. The intervals between the lines and spaces in the natural key were learned and readily applied to music written in this key. In the different keys the intervals were determined by the flats and sharps of the signature, and these intervals were sung without regard to the key in which the music was written. Music was conceived as made up, not of scale intervals, but of a succession of tones without any relation to the tonic of the scale in which the music was written. That the method presented great difficulties is shown by the fact that comparatively few persons taught by this method ever became ready readers of music by sight. Most of them required the use of an instrument to learn new pieces, and many singers read music through the instrument which they played, imagining how it would sound upon the instrument. In this system, when the syllables do, re, mi, etc., were used, these syllables were fixed for the natural key and remained stationary throughout all the different keys, the system being known as that of the "fixed do.” ED 96--7*

This system has been advocated by many of the leading musicians of this country and of Europe. This advocacy is not unnatural or surprising, as most of these musicians are instrumentalists, and the instrumentalist does not necessarily think of his scale or key note; he sees the note and touches the key or string which corresponds to it on his instrument, sharping or flatting in accordance with the signature of the key. He plays, or may play, entirely unconscious of scale relations, thinking only of the note on the staff or upon his instrument. It is entirely natural, therefore, that he should regard a method of singing by means of a movable scale as unnecessary and inconvenient. Especially if the syllables do, re, mi, etc., are used, does it seem to him not only inconvenient but absurd to change the position of these syllables for the different keys in which the music may be written.

This system of singing by staff or tone intervals is the one that has been generally used by those who train to artistic singing. The object in this instruction is not "sight singing," but vocal culture and the artistic use of the voice. Such singers are seldom ready readers of music; they depend on the instrument to give them the tune, their aim being the beautiful and artistic rendering of the music. Even the great singers like Patti are said to be very poor or indifferent readers of music, their dependence being upon the instrument in learning a new score. These facts demand our attention, so that the popularity of this method among so many eminent musicians may be clearly understood and properly estimated. The advocates of the method are largely instrumentalists and have not been interested in sight reading of a vocal score; or, when they were teachers of singing, the object was not to make independent readers of music, but artistic performers. Their views upon the subject are thus not only natural, but, under the circumstances, entirely reasonable.

The method of scale intervals.-The second method of reading music is that of scale intervals and the movable scale. This method does not think of musical sounds as intervals upon the staff or as abstract tone intervals, but as degrees of the scale in their relation to one another and to the tonic. The scale is regarded as a musical unit of thought, and each tone is considered or conceived in relation to this unit. The mind thus thinks music through scale relations, conceiving a tone as the second, third, fourth, etc., of the scale. The course of instruction begins with drilling the pupil upon the major scale of eight notes until he has mastered it and its intervals. These intervals are learned in relation to the fundamental note of the scale as well as in relation to one another. Having mastered this scale, which is purely a vocal exercise, the pupil is taught how to represent it on the staff in what is called the natural key. He is then drilled in reading by the degrees of the scale until he can tell at a glance the position in the scale which any note upon the staff indicates. Knowing the sound of the different tones of the scale, he can then readily read any score of the major scale in the natural key set before him.

He is then taught the use of flats and sharps and drilled upon the simpler intervals of the chromatic scale. The next step is to show how these flats and sharps, placed upon certain degrees of the staff, give a scale beginning on some other degree of the staff than C. For example, he learns that with the signature of F sharp the scale starts on G, with the signature of F sharp and C' sharp the scale begins on D, etc. He is then drilled upon reading in the different keys, naming successively the degree of the scale indicated by the notes, reckoning from the location of the tonic, precisely as he did in the natural key of C.

In all this work he reads and sings not by staff intervals or tonic relations, but by scale intervals. In looking at a new score he looks at the signature, determines the place of the keynote or tonic, and counts the degree of the scale from that place of the keynote. He does not think of F sharp or B flat, etc., but of the degree of the scale which the noto represents. Thus in the first two or three measures of "Home, sweet home," no matter in what key it may be written, his thought would be one, three, four, six, five, three, five, four, three, four, two, three; or if he uses the syllables which are often employed to designate the degrees of the scale, he thinks do, mi, fa, la, sol, mi, sol, fa, mi, fa, re, mi.

This method, it will be seen, is entirely different from that of tone or staff relations; it is based upon the musical scale and conceives of the different notes of the melody in their relations to the scale. If the syllables do, re, mi, etc., are used, do is always the first of the scale, mi the third, sol the fifth, etc. If the scale begins on C, then a note on C is called do; if the scale begins on F, as in the key of one flat, then a note on F is called do, a note on A is called mi, etc. The do thus naming the first degree of the scale is moved with the movable scale, from which the system has been called that of the "movable do."

The difference between the two methods may be illustrated by the reading of the following exercise:

By the method of scale relations and the movable scale this would be read as follows: One-three | five-three | four-six | five || five-six | four-seven | two-one | five five-one | seven-four | three-two | one .

By the method of tonic or staff relations one would think and read as follows: Eb-G, a major 3d | Bы, a minor 3d-G, a minor 3d | A», a minor 2d-C, a major 3d | B, a major 2d | B-C, a major 2d | Aь, a minor 3d-Dь, an extended 4th | F, a minor 3d-E1, a major 2d | Bы, a 4th || Bь-Er, a 5th | D, a minor 2d-Aы, a diminished 5th | G, a minor 2d-F, a major 2d | Eь, a major 2d || .

I have merely named the intervals between successive notes, without indicating whether they are ascending or descending. It will be noticed that in reading by the method of tonic intervals one must distinguish between major and minor seconds, major and minor thirds, perfect, augmented, and diminished fourths; perfect, augmented, and diminished fifths, etc., a thing not difficult for the accomplished musician who is familiar with an instrument, but exceedingly difficult for the ordinary reader of vocal scores. By the method of scale relations these intervals present no difficulties to the singer.

The method of the movable scale, as stated above, is usually known as that of the "movable do." This name does not characterize it fully, however, as the method of scale relations may be employed without the use of the syllables do, re, mi, in which case of course there is no do to be moved. While it is believed that there are advantages in using these syllables with beginners to indicate the different degrees of the scale, yet many good teachers of the method of scale relations use other syllables, as la or ta, for all the degrees of the scale. The essential nature of the method is not indicated by the use of the syllables; it consists in the conception of sounds in respect to their relations to the scale, this scale being moved on the staff as indicated by the signature of the key in which the music is written.

These two methods have been and to a limited extent are still competitive for public favor. While both have strong and intelligent advocates, the tide of opinion is now setting strongly in favor of the "movable scale" system. This is the method that is generally used in the elementary schools of Switzerland and Germany. In France the same system is gaining ground under the name of the Cheve method, which is so well represented in this city by Professor Zobanaky. In England the old system was found so difficult that in order to simplify the work of popular musical instruction they dropped not only the staff relations but the staff itself, giving rise to Mr. Curwen's method, known as the "tonic sol-fa system." The method of the movable scale was introduced into the United States largely through the influence of Dr. Lowell Mason, one of the most accomplished Pestalozzian instructors that this country has produced. The widespread introduction of musical instruction in the public schools of the United States is largely an inheritance from and an outgrowth of the labors of Dr. Lowell Mason.

The tonic sol-fa method. In this discussion a passing word should be said in respect

to the tonic sol-fa system. This method originated with a Miss Glover, of Norwich, England, but is generally credited to Rev. John Curwen, through whose influence it has been so widely introduced. The method is based on scale relations, and therefore in pure musical conception agrees with the method of scale relations already described. It differs in the representation of music to the eye, introducing an entirely different notation from the one in general use. This notation is simple and readily learned by the pupil; and it is this simplicity, especially as contrasted with the method of intervals, which has given it so large a degree of popularity. The objection to the method is that it does not present a universal musical language or one that can ever become universal. Modern instrumental music would be impossible by this system. A person when taught to sing by this method must afterwards learn the generally accepted notation, or be restricted to a very limited number of musical compositions. The present mode of writing music has been accepted by the musicians of every country; and a person taught only by the tonic sol-fa method would be unable to read the simplest score written in the common notation. The method is, however, extensively used in England and Canada, and is widely recommended and strongly indorsed by some of the leading musicians and educators of both Europe and America. It is especially commended as an introduction to the staff notation. This reference to the method is not designed as a recommendation of its introduction into the elementary schools, but is merely given because in the discussion of systems this is too conspicuous not to receive a passing notice. Even if it were thought best to use it in teaching the elements of music to little children, it should be regarded merely as a stepping-stone to the generally accepted system of musical notation.

In the introduction of music into the public schools of the city it is necessary to decide upon the merits of the two principal systems described and to determine which one should be adopted. My own judgment, based on a wide observation and the experience of several years in early life in teaching music, is strongly biased in favor of the method of scale relations and the movable scale. Children, even those who have not much natural ability for music, can be readily taught by this method to read music by sight. The other method presents far greater difficulties to the learner, and is entirely unsatisfactory for use in the clementary schools. The arguments in favor of the method of scale relations and the movable scale seem to me to be conclusive. The method is simple and logical and in accordance with the essential principles of the art of music. The unit of the system is the scale, which is the foundation of all musical compositions. Each tone of the scale has its relation to the tonic and should be so conceived. When the key is changed, and thus the position of the scale upon the staff is changed, the relations of the tones to the keynote are always the same; the scale is simply started from another pitch indicated by another degree of the staff. Furthermore, all work in harmony is based on the scale rather than the staff relations; the chord of the tonic, the dominant, the subdominant, etc., are all conceived in scale relations as these expressions indicate. Indeed, it seems almost impossible for anyone to have an intelligent idea of either melody or harmony without thinking of them in their relations to the musical scale.

The foregoing description of Dr. Brooks is inserted because it will aid us in understanding the subsequent statement by Prof. J. Helm of the details of the method in vogue in elementary schools in Germany, which is offered in translation:

DETAILS OF THE GERMAN METHOD OF TEACHING SINGING.

It will be generally conceded that teaching singing in school has a double purpose in view, the acquisition of a number of songs and knowledge of the elements of music. In regard to the place songs are to occupy in the method, opinions differ as much as they do in regard to the understanding and presentation of the relation