etc. The dropping of the r in the southern singer is not conspicuous in singing, while the quick volatile speech of the typical westerner does not appear in the singing of good music.

If singing be properly taught, the articulation and enunciation is much. more clearly brought out than is ever done in ordinary speech, and as I have said, the result is virtually the same in all sections of the country. We all sing much better than we talk. Is it not then obvious that schoolmusic supervisors who have in hand the musical training of the children have a wonderful opportunity for correcting much of the imperfection in speech and of building at least a singable pronunciation by teaching the children to sing with correct diction? Now this is not a daydream nor at all an impossible task, neither should it be regarded as an extra burden to the already busy supervisor, or to the crowded courses of study. It simply means infinite pains at the beginning and all the way up thru the grades, insisting that every syllable and every word in every song shall be clearly understood.

It is with the younger children that the effort should be made to establish correct habits of articulation. This will not come by chance but must be done by distinct and definite drills and exercises. Now these last two words have been banished from our vocabulary for some years, but I believe we are all coming to realize that however hard we may try to make our work beautiful, to lead the child gently by means of play, and to uphold his interest and affection for the work by making it beautiful at every turn, yet there are some things that absolutely demand a certain. amount of old-fashioned drill, and this matter of articulating our mothertongue is one of them. It is not too much to teach little children the proper position of mouth for the vowel sounds, and to give little songs particularly adapted to following up this teaching.

or aw.

Children in kindergarten may be taught how to sing in the front of the mouth, a long, round o, the long oo, the long e, the long a, the bright ah, We may make it a game and they enjoy it as well as another. The flexibility of lips, jaw, tongue, and throat which comes from such vowel exercises, is a very valuable acquisition in all his future life in singing and speaking. Beginning in the kindergarten and coming along thru the grades, the utmost care should be taken to enunciate distinctly every consonant, whether initial or final, and in any combination.

Evan Williams, who is a remarkable example of perfect diction, has given in a series of lessons a melody on each vowel of the alphabet, prefaced by every consonant of the alphabet. It is a wonderful exercise, and without doubt the children practicing on these would acquire great facility • in diction. Another composer has written a little booklet of six vowel songs, bringing out in delightful little song-form the vowel sounds. Another composer has published a book based upon the tone development using the vowels.

Some years ago I derived more help in this particular field from a book

let of lessons by Frederic Root, Chicago. Mr. Root, has given a great part of his professional career to this matter of diction, and in the booklet gave most helpful suggestions and exercises. He, in common with Sieber and others, uses to splendid advantage the Italian syllables, la, be, da, me, ni, po, These syllables give the long vowel prefaced with liquid or labial consonants, are most helpful, and may be applied to any vocalized exercise or melody. The syllables of our major scale are almost equally good, but we have used them carelessly so long that it takes extra effort to induce proper care in their use.

tu.

In these lessons of Dr. Root is a couplet of a stanza of familiar song which I have used with children of grammar grades to splendid advantage, with its original melody or chanted on the tones of the tonic chord: The dew lay glittering o'er the grass,

A mist lay over the brook,

At the earliest beams of the morning sun,

The Swallow her nest forsook.

Any exercise of this sort that helps the children to gain control of the organs of speech, to render flexible the muscles of the face and throat, is valuable. One I have used many times to vitalize the breath muscles and devitalize the throat, jaw, and tongue, is to chant softly the alphabet thru, with extraordinary effort at enunciation, but the merest thread of tone, and a perfectly flexible throat. Another most excellent exercise in control of the facial muscles and forming of mouth, is to pantomime the words of any familiar stanza of poetry or verse of song. This, of course, produces facial contortions which are ludicrous in the extreme, but it brings the desired results. With it I have many times broken up the immobility of mouth with boys of grammar age, who insist in speaking, reading, and singing with the teeth nearly closed, and immovable jaw and tense facial muscles. It is great fun-the children enjoy it, and you get what you want-distinct enunciation. Ask a pupil who does it well to come before the class and pantomime a stanza that all have studied, and see if they can read from the lips and guess the selection.

Another stanza in Professor Root's book has been used for this tongueloosening with splendid effect, sung a line to each note of the scale or chanted on different tones:

Here is a subject for close contemplation

By every singer of whatever station;

One to be met without weak consternation,
But with invincible determination,
Giving it carefullest consideration,
Scorning depression and spurning elation,
Till we've explored every ramification

Of this most wonderful thing in creation.

There are many poems of standard classics that are excellent for practice; Tennyson's "Brook" and Poe's "Bells" are most excellent. It is

utterly absurd for us to permit our foreign critics to assert that the English is not a singable tongue. We have brought this upon ourselves, by ourselves, by our utter indifference, and carelessness in teaching in schools and elsewhere. It is not enough that our children can vocalize with respectable tone on a broad ah—we must go farther and insist that the words of the song shall be intelligible—not some of the words only, but every last, single syllable, down to the prepositions and articles. It rests with the music supervisors to bring this reform. It is the only way in which it can be done.

How To AIM THE VOICE

PARISIAN SAVANT DECLARES FEW PERSONS SPEAK DISTINCTLY

PARIS, June 17.-A distinguished Parisian laryngologist, Dr. Pierre Bonnier, has been telling the public for some time past that in addition to not knowing how to eat or drink or sleep or dress or walk, men do not know how to speak properly.

According to his theory, the more we try to hear our voices at a distance from us the farther the voice is produced in front of the vocal mechanism, which adopts the room in which we are speaking, as an extension of itself. In other words, the ear should aim at the point which the projected voice should reach, just as the eye, in taking in the distance of a mark, unconsciously directs the arm which throws a stone at it.

Many forces are at work to bring about better musical conditions thruout the country. Promoters of opera in English need and should have our unqualified support. By actually teaching the children in the school to sing correct English, to appreciate the beauties of our own speech, thus lifting the standards in English everywhere, we can give this impetus in a thousand times more practical way than by merely wishing the project well, and condemning it with faint praise.

We Americans pay more money for grand opera than any other country in the world, and understand less of it. The children who are today in our schoolrooms are to be in the next decade the opera-goers and critics. Let us make it possible for them to have sufficient faith and loyalty in the language of their own country to demand that their opera shall be given to them in intelligible form.

Let us cease demeaning our own mother-tongue by blind worship of everything foreign, whether it be bad or good, silly or sensible. The English speech has come to be the universal language of the world. Let us honor it by treating it with the respect that is due, and by means of the music in the public schools let us do our part in hastening the day when Americanisms shall cease to be a reproach. With all due apologies to J. G. Holland we paraphrase:

God give us English. A time like this demands

Teachers, whom the lust of cramming does not kill;
Singers, whom the lure of Europe does not spoil:
Americans, who possess opinions, and a will,
And love for native tongue, and flag, and soil;
Artists, who can stand before the cry and clamor

That shrugs "Impossible" and deems our opera a fable;
Great artists, sun-crowned, who live above the glamor
Of foreign "atmosphere" and tongues of Babel.

For, while our people with their careless tongue and speech
Murder our language, spite of all we teach

Ignore our own composers-lo, Apollo sleeps,
Alien song rules the land, and waiting English weeps.

THE OPPORTUNITY AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN PUBLIC-SCHOOL MUSIC

C. A. FULLERTON, DIRECTOR OF MUSIC, IOWA STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE, CEDAR FALLS, IOWA

In this discussion I am assuming a very positive need for musical culture in our country. I am assuming that the type of citizen that must be developed in America will not only be trained to intellectual discernment and manual efficiency so that he may become a good machine for earning money, but that he be a man of high ideals and pure motives so that the money which he earns shall be wisely spent in administering to his own needs and to the needs of society. I am assuming that in the development of the higher life of this citizen, art in general and music in particular, will have a large part.

The kind of recreation which occupies the leisure hours of our people is a factor of tremendous significance in determining their place in modern life. The distinction between the people represented in the "rogues' gallery" and those represented in the "hall of fame" is much more pronounced in the line of emotional trend and emotional training than it is in mental discernment or in manual dexterity. In mental discernment the rogues'-gallery" crowd would compete quite favorably with the others, while in "manual dexterity" they would outclass them. The difference between these two classes-the enemies of society and the benefactors of society is largely a difference in ideals and motives, and, excepting religion, there is no greater single influence in society for raising the standard of life than the enriching and ennobling power of good music. The first step in the music education of the masses of the people is to realize the value of it.

My topic is the opportunity and responsibility of normal schools in music education. The phenomenal growth of the past few years in publicschool music is but an expression of a growing desire on the part of the masses of the people to have their children experience the benefits of music in their lives. Public-school music is the conservatory of the common people, and it outstrips in its influence any other conservatory of music on the globe. It offers opportunities for the promotion of musical culture that have not been equalled in the history of the race.

This rapidly increasing interest in school music gives the normal school a special vantage ground in music education. The music education of

the people is largely in the hands of the public-school teachers, the responsibility being divided between the regular grade teacher and the special music teacher or supervisor. So far as the regular grade teacher is concerned, a few have studied singing with private teachers, a gradually increasing number, but a small percentage of the whole, have had the benefit of school music thruout the grades and high school and are fairly well equipped to teach the subject, but the great majority of grade teachers in the public schools are helpless in the music work unless they have had some special training for it. Now the normal school furnishes the only adequate opportunity for the training for this music work.

Of all the state normal schools in our nation, a large majority require at least two terms of music for prospective grade teachers. The first problem for the normal schools is to use these two terms in the most effective way, and the principal purpose of this paper is to make some suggestions in this line. Thirteen years' experience in the department of music in a normal school has given me a very firm conviction that, from any viewpoint that may be taken, these two terms of music far exceed in importance any other phase of music work in the department if the best use is made of the opportunities offered in them.

My faith in the possibilities of this elementary work is so strong that I believe a new era in musical culture would dawn if every normal school in the United States were to begin by placing the principal emphasis on the musical growth and training of its general student body. The beginning class in music should be a vital force in the school. It should be a class in music in fact as well as in name. If it is merely a class in "note-reading," and in the "elements of music," and in "methods," and what not it is all right to speak of it with the apologetic air that is sometimes used; but if the spirit of song is ever present in the class, if growth in musical efficiency and in musical appreciation is constant, if the teacher not only has the enthusiasm and tact and judgment that combine to make the inspiring leader, but if his methods are such as to place his work in line with the best educational ideals of the twentieth century, then the conditions are supplied for developing a department of music that will be worthy of any educational institution.

It will not do to underestimate the importance of using the very best methods in these classes. If there is any teacher who needs to discriminate carefully between the good and the best in methods, it is this teacher of the beginning classes in music. Time is valuable, and it is important that all waste be eliminated and the musical growth of the class be provided for along the line of natural development. It is a matter of small concern whether a method is old or new, but a matter of tremendous significance whether it is good or bad. The past twelve or fifteen years have brought about a revolution in the methods of teaching public-school music-a revolution that had occurred in many other lines of public-school work