ilful imparting of them, on the other.

The abilities of the trained teachers of to-day are not half
appreciated. They often possess professional skill of the highest order,
and the supervisor of music in the public schools may count himself
exceedingly fortunate in the means he has at hand for carrying on his
work. But knowledge of voice is no more evolved from one's inner
consciousness than is knowledge of musical notation, or of the Greek
alphabet; therefore, if regular teachers in the school permit singing
which is unmusical and hurtful, it is chiefly because they are following
the usual customs, and their ears have thereby become dulled, or it may
be that even if the singing is unpleasant to them, that they do not
_know how_ to make it better. As before said, all energies have so far
been directed to the teaching of music reading. Tone has been neglected,
forgotten, or at most its improvement has been sought spasmodically. The
carelessness regarding tone, which is so prevalent, is due to an almost
entire absence of good teaching on the subject of the child-voice-- to
ignorance, let us say-- not altogether inexcusable.

Now and then, when listening to the soprani of some well-trained
boy-choir, sounding soft and mellow on the lower notes and ringing clear
and flutey on the higher, it may have dimly occurred to the teacher of
public school music that there might be things as yet unheard of in his
musical philosophy, a vague wonder and dissatisfaction, which has slowly
disappeared under the pressure of routine work.

When one reflects upon the results which the patience and skill of our
regular teachers have accomplished in teaching pupils to read music; it
can never be reasonably doubted that the same patience and skill, if
rightly directed, will be equally successful in teaching a correct use
of the voice.

Two principles form the basis of good tone-production as applied to
children's voices.

1st. _They must sing softly._

2d. _They must be restricted in compass of voice._

If these two rules are correctly applied in each grade, if pupils sing
_softly enough_, and carry their tones neither too high nor too low,
always taking into account the grade or average age of the class, then
the voice will be used _only in the thin or head-register_, and the
tones of the thick or chest-register will never be heard. But the two
rules must be as one, for if soft singing be carried too low with infant
voices, they are fo