f service to them has prompted me to put in permanent
form the principles on which I labored, more or less patiently, to
ground them during a course of three, four, or five years. The fact that
after having stood the "grind" for that length of time they are still
asking, not to say clamoring, for more, may, in a measure, justify the
decision to issue this book. It is not an arraignment of vocal teachers,
although there are occasional hints, public and private, which lead me
to believe that we are not altogether without sin. But if this be true
we take refuge in the belief that our iniquity is not inborn, but rather
is it the result of the educational methods of those immediately
preceding us. This at least shifts the responsibility.

Words are dangerous things, and are liable at any moment to start a
verbal conflagration difficult to control. Nowhere is this more likely
to occur than in a discussion of voice training.

From a rather wide acquaintance with what has been said on this subject
in the past hundred years, I feel perfectly safe in submitting the
proposition that the human mind can believe anything and be
conscientious in it.

Things which have the approval of ages emit the odor of sanctity, and
whoever scoffs does so at his peril. Charles Lamb was once criticised
for speaking disrespectfully of the equator, and a noted divine was
severely taken to task for making unkind remarks about hell. Humanity
insists that these time honored institutions be treated with due
respect. I have an equal respect for those who believe as I do and those
who do not; therefore if anything in this book is not in accord with
popular opinion it is a crack at the head of the idol rather than that
of the worshipper.

There is no legislative enactment in this great and free country to
prevent us from _believing_ anything we like, but there should be some
crumbs of comfort in the reflection that we cannot _know_ anything but
the truth. One may believe that eight and three are thirteen if it
please him, but he cannot know it because it is not true. Everything
that is true has for its basis certain facts, principles, laws, and
these are eternal and unchangeable. The instant the law governing any
particular thing becomes definitely known, that moment it becomes
undebatable. All argument is eliminated; but while we are searching for
these laws we are dealing largely in opinions, and here the offense
enters, for as Mr. Epictetus once said,