rare. Real talent will get along, even with an inferior teacher,
in some way or another; while the best teacher cannot produce talent
where there is none. Such a teacher, however, will not beguile people
with promises that cannot be kept.

My chief attention I devote to artists, whom I can, perhaps, assist in
their difficult, but glorious, profession. One is never done with
learning; and that is especially true of singers. I earnestly hope
that I may leave them something, in my researches, experiences, and
studies, that will be of use. I regard it as my duty; and I confide it
to all who are striving earnestly for improvement.

GRUeNEWALD, Oct. 31, 1900.

SECTION I

PRELIMINARY PRACTICE

It is very important for all who wish to become artists to begin their
work not with practical exercises in singing, but with serious
practice in tone production, in breathing in and out, in the functions
of the lungs and palate, in clear pronunciation of all letters, and
with speech in general.

Then it would soon be easy to recognize talent or the lack of it. Many
would open their eyes in wonder over the difficulties of learning to
sing, and the proletariat of singers would gradually disappear. With
them would go the singing conservatories and the bad teachers who, for
a living, teach everybody that comes, and promise to make everybody a
great artist.

Once when I was acting as substitute for a teacher in a conservatory,
the best pupils of the institution were promised me,--those who needed
only the finishing touches. But when, after my first lesson, I went to
the director and complained of the ignorance of the pupils, my mouth
was closed with these words, "For Heaven's sake, don't say such
things, or we could never keep our conservatory going!"

I had enough, and went.

The best way is for pupils to learn preparatory books by heart, and
make drawings. In this way they will get the best idea of the vocal
organs, and learn their functions by sensation as soon as they begin
to sing. The pupil should be subjected to strict examinations.

_In what does artistic singing differ from natural singing?_

In a clear understanding of all the organs concerned in voice
production, and their functions, singly and together; in the
understanding of the sensations in singing, conscientiously studied
and scientifically explained; in a gradually cultivated power of
contracting and relaxing the muscles of the vocal organs, that powe