a general feeling of the insufficiency of
present knowledge of the voice. The problem of the correct management of
the vocal organs has not been finally and definitely solved. Voice
Culture has not been reduced to an exact science. Vocal teachers are not
in possession of an infallible method of training voices. Students of
singing find great difficulty in learning how to use their voices. Voice
Culture is generally recognized as entitled to a position among the
exact sciences; but something remains to be done before it can assume
that position.

There must be some definite reason for the failure of theoretical
investigation to produce a satisfactory Science of Voice Culture. This
cannot be due to any present lack of understanding of the vocal
mechanism on the part of scientific students of the subject. The anatomy
and physiology of the vocal organs have been exhaustively studied by a
vast number of highly trained experts. So far as the muscular operations
of tone-production are concerned, and the laws of acoustics bearing on
the vocal action, no new discovery can well be expected. But in this
very fact, the exhaustive attention paid to the mechanical operations
of the voice, is seen the incompleteness of Vocal Science. Attention has
been turned exclusively to the mechanical features of tone-production,
and in consequence many important facts bearing on the voice have been
overlooked.

In spite of the general acceptance of the doctrines of Vocal Science,
tone-production has not really been studied from the purely scientific
standpoint. The use of the word "science" presupposes the careful
observation and study of all facts and phenomena bearing in any way on
the subject investigated. Viewed in this light, the scientific study of
the voice is at once seen to be incomplete. True, the use of the voice
is a muscular operation, and a knowledge of the muscular structure of
the vocal organs is necessary to an understanding of the voice. But this
knowledge alone is not sufficient. Like every other voluntary muscular
operation, tone-production is subject to the psychological laws of
control and guidance. Psychology is therefore of equal importance with
anatomy and acoustics as an element of Vocal Science.

There is also another line along which all previous investigation of
the voice is singularly incomplete. An immense fund of information about
the vocal action is obtained by attentive listening to voices, and in no
other wa