latness is easily avoided, and the registers blend perfectly. A curious
local peculiarity has to be specially treated in the junior boys. The
Scottish 'u' as in 'gude' (good), 'puir' (poor), 'nue' (new), is
identical with the French 'u' in 'tu' or 'Hugo,' and the little fellows
sing an amusing exercise like the following:--

You should do two,

on every note of the scale, with special care to protrude the lips to a
round whistling shape for the 'oo.' Very oddly they sing a good 'oo' in
the falsetto register, and a certain solo boy used to sing Handel's 'How
beautiful are the feet' in its first two phrases in alternate Scotch and
English, the vinegary 'ue' in the first (low) phrase, and a fine round
'oo' in the higher phrase, where 'beautiful' begins on E flat.

"Raw candidates and ill-taught children generally come minus any
register at all above [Illustration: high d] and grin with surprise on
being taught to produce sweet upper notes by open-mouth _piano_ 'ah.'

"Colds and petty hoarseness, interfering with the upper notes, are
terribly common in this climate in the class of boys obtained for the
choir. A successful soloist at Friday rehearsal may be found incompetent
by Sunday, so that all solo work is carefully understudied. A few
minutes each day suffice for the purely technical voice exercises. The
services are many in number; three on Sunday, two on week-days, and
occasional extra services at special seasons. The number of boys is kept
up to say 30, and they are worked in divisions to minimise their duties.
The boys are educated free, and seniors receive payment. 'I think that
boys' voices are much like unto boys' legs--they need daily exercise if
they are to be worth anything.'"

* * * * *

Mr. R. H. Saxton, of Buxton, writes:--"My choir boys are almost
exclusively drawn from the working class, and the majority of them use
the thick register for the speaking voice. I take them at nine years of
age, sometimes younger if they can read fairly well, and my first effort
is to suppress the thick register altogether in singing. If they were
encouraged to use it they would most certainly abuse it by carrying it
far beyond its proper range. Soft singing is the only effective plan I
know of for removing the tendency to use the thick register. This I
insist on in modulator voluntaries and time exercises. The time
exercises are always laa'd on or above [Illustration: middle A]. In
mo