ame fundamental physiological principles apply to the lowest and
to the highest animals. To all belong certain properties or qualities.
As structure is differentiated, or as one animal differs from another
owing to greater or less complexity of form, there is a corresponding
differentiation of function, none, however, ever losing the
fundamental properties of protoplasm. Each organ comes to perform some
one function better than all others. This is specialization, and
implies advance among animals as it does in civilization.

The neuro-muscular system is of great moment to the voice-user. He is
a specialist as regards the neuro-muscular systems of the vocal
mechanism. But the same laws apply to it as to other neuro-muscular
mechanisms. It is of great theoretical and practical importance to
recognize this, and that one part of the body is related to every
other, which relationship is maintained chiefly by the nervous system,
and largely through reflex action.

CHAPTER III.

BREATHING CONSIDERED THEORETICALLY AND PRACTICALLY.

If the old orator was right in considering _delivery_ as the essence
of public speaking as an art, it may with equal truth be said of
singing, the term being always so extended in signification as to
imply what Rossini named as the essential for the singer--_voice_.

Looking at it from the physiological point of view, we may say that
the one absolutely essential thing for singers and speakers is
breathing. Without methods of breathing that are correct and adequate
there may be a perfect larynx and admirably formed resonance-chambers
above the vocal bands, with very unsatisfactory results. The more the
writer knows of singers and speakers, the more deeply does he become
convinced that singing and speaking may be resolved into the correct
use of the breathing apparatus, above all else. Not that this alone
will suffice, but it is the most important, and determines more than
any other factor the question of success or failure. Breathing is the
key-note with which we must begin, and to which we must return again
and again.

The extent to which this subject has been misunderstood,
misrepresented, and obscured in works on the voice, and its neglect by
so large a number of those who profess to understand how to teach
singing and public speaking, are truly amazing. That many should fail
to fully appreciate its importance in attaining artistic results is
not so surprising as that the process its