proper
directions be followed the quality will be as good as the voice is
capable of.

Everyone who has observed has also noticed the contrast in the lower
tones of children and women. The chest-voice of the woman, which she
uses in singing her lower register, is normally very beautiful in its
quality. Its tones are the product of a perfectly developed, full-grown
organ. The chest-voice of the child is an abnormal product of a weak,
growing, undeveloped organ. It possesses, even when used carefully,
little of the tone tints of the adult voice. The chest-voice belongs to
adult life, not to childhood. The so-called chest-voice of children is
only embryonic. It cannot be musical, for the larynx has not reached
that stage of growth and development where it can produce these tones
musically. The constant use of this hybrid register with children is
injurious in many ways. Its use is justified in schools merely through
custom, and it can not be doubted that as soon as the attention of
teachers is called to its evils, they will no longer tolerate its use.

The usual analogies then which are drawn between the adult female voice
and the child-voice, in so far as they imply a similar physiological
condition of the vocal organ and similar vocal training, are not only
useless, but misleading. He who tries to train the average child-voice
on the theory of two, three or five clearly-defined breaks, or natural
changes in the forms for vocal vibration assumed by the vocal bands will
get very little help from nature.

With due consideration it is said that it is a harder task to train
children's voices properly than to train the voices of adults. Where
nature is so shifty in her ways, it requires keen penetration to
discover her ends.

The child-voice is a delicate instrument. It ought not to be played upon
by every blacksmith.

CHAPTER III.

HOW TO SECURE GOOD TONE.

The practical application of the teaching of the two preceding chapters
may at first thought seem to be difficult. On the contrary, it is quite
easy. We have favorable conditions in schools; graded courses in music,
regular attendance, discipline, and women and men in charge who are
accustomed to teach. No more favorable conditions for teaching vocal
music exist than are to be found in a well-organized and
well-disciplined school. The environments of both pupils and teachers
are exactly adapted to the ready reception of ideas, on the one hand,
and the sk