heir false selves as represented by sensational
paragraphs in newspapers are only too familiar to us. It may truly be
said of the artist: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou
shalt not escape calumny." It is within the power of society to alter
this, and it should do so.

Why is it that actors and singers do not prepare themselves by as
prolonged and thorough a vocal training as in a past time?

Considering that there never was a period when there was the same
scope for art, never a time when the public was so eager to hear and
so able to pay for art, as now, never a period of such widespread
intelligence on all subjects, music included, the question is a very
pertinent one. We believe there are many factors underlying the
technical decadence we must regret. The orchestra has greatly
developed, choral singing is common in all countries, and the spirit
of the times has changed. So analytical, so refined is our age, that
singing sometimes becomes a sort of musical declamation, but,
unfortunately, without that power to declaim possessed by the actors
and often the opera-singers of a former period. A singer often
attempts now to make up by an expressive reading of a song, for
technical defects. We must all commend every evidence of
intellectuality in music, but this does not imply that we should
accept good intentions for execution--performance. Let us have every
possible development of orchestral music; let every village have, if
possible, its choral society, but let none enter it who have not been
trained vocally.

Out of the author's own experience he could a tale unfold of the evil
done to the vocal organs by those who have sung in choirs without
adequate vocal training. Choristers are tempted to reach high tones by
a process of their own, without any regard to registers, and with
corresponding effects on their throats, some of which imply also
lasting injury to the voice itself.

In choral singing there is the tendency to lean on certain singers who
are natural leaders, with the result that there is little independent
listening and individual culture, even if the singer could hear his
own voice well, which is not usually the case. The same objections and
others apply to class singing in schools, which does little for
music, and tends to make slovenly singers. If some of the time given
to school singing were taken up in illustrating why certain musical
selections are good, and others mere rubbish--in ot