voice; yet a large contingent still adhere to the doctrine of
"register," depending for their justification upon the unreliable
evidence furnished by the laryngoscope, not realizing that there will
be found in the little lens as many different conditions as the
observers have eyes to see. Garcia himself, the inventor of the
laryngoscope, soon modified his first claims as to its value in vocal
culture.

On this point we have the testimony of his biographer, M.S. McKinley:

"As far as Garcia was concerned, the laryngoscope ceased to be of any
special use as soon as his first investigations were concluded. By his
examination of the glottis he had the satisfaction of proving that all
his theories with regard to the emission of the voice were absolutely
correct. Beyond that he did not see that anything further was to be
gained except to satisfy the curiosity of those who might be
interested in seeing for themselves the forms and changes which the
inside of the larynx assumed during singing and speaking."

Of similar purport is the word of the eminent baritone, Sir Charles
Santley, who, in his _Art of Singing_, says:

"Manuel Garcia is held up as the pioneer of scientific teaching of
singing. He was--but he taught singing, not surgery! I was a pupil of
his in 1858 and a friend of his while he lived;[1] and in all the
conversations I had with him I never heard him say a word about larynx
or pharynx, glottis or any other organ used in the production and
emission of the voice. He was perfectly acquainted with their
functions, but he used his knowledge for his own direction, not to
parade it before his pupils."

[Footnote 1: Garcia died July 1, 1906, at the age of 101.]

The eminent London surgeon and voice specialist, Dr. Morell Mackenzie,
says of the laryngoscope, "It can scarcely be said to have thrown any
new light on the mechanism of the voice"; and Dr. Lennox Browne
confesses that, "Valuable as has been the laryngoscope in a
physiological, as undoubtedly it is in a medical sense, it has been
the means of making all theories of voice production too dependent on
the vocal cords, and thus the importance of the other parts of the
vocal apparatus has been overlooked."

Not only in regard to "registers" but in regard to resonance, focus,
articulation, and the offices and uses of the various vocal organs,
similar antagonistic opinions exist. Out of this chaos must some time
come a demonstrable system.

A generation ago t