had at the beginning of each practice to take the choir through the
whole of the next Sunday's services. The boys' voices were, at the
beginning of my connection, uncivilised, and at the end of
it--fortunately the question of ways and means not allowing the interval
to extend beyond a few months--were as barbarous as at the commencement.
There was absolutely no chance of making a name through these
youngsters; and as to voice culture! How could it be possible to attempt
it after labouring through such a programme as Canticles, Hymns, Psalms,
Kyrie, and Amens?

I determined never to take office again unless I could have my own way
in fixing the time-table of work. My success in the other case was owing
greatly to the fact that I had one night a week entirely devoted to
musical training and voice culture. This did not preclude us from
relieving the drudgery of work by the singing of songs and hymns, _but_
it allowed me the use of an unfettered judgment in the _choice_ of what
should be attempted. A teacher is heavily handicapped if after getting
his boys for the first time to sing in the upper thin register, he is to
follow his delicate work by singing half-a-dozen verses to a tune which
will in the very first verse undo all that he has done, simply because
its melodic progression encourages forcing. Experienced teachers will
appreciate what I say on this point. Take such a tune as:--

[Illustration: &c.

KEY E[b]. {|m:f |s:l |t:d1 |s:f || &c.]

--a tune which inevitably causes a wrong use of the registers by
inexperienced boys. The tunes selected should further the work of the
exercises, not undo it, and with diligence the teacher can find suitable
tunes and chants for this purpose. My advice to all teachers is that
before commencing work they should insist upon conditions that do not
preclude success, and that they should not spend their labour in
wearying drudgery with the full consciousness that to attain it is
impossible.

One suggestion I would make is that the choirmaster, if he be not, as is
often the case in villages, also schoolmaster, would do well to enlist
the services of the school teachers in the village. It is not often
practicable to have more than one--or two at the most--meetings of a
choir during the week, and the length of the lesson must be, in
consequence, at least an hour. For voice training in the earlier stages
six lessons a week of fifteen minutes each are preferable to one of an
hour and