rced to use the thick tones; and children of all
ages, even if singing within the right compass of voice, will use the
thick register if permitted to sing too loud.

There is nothing particularly original in insisting upon soft singing
from children. The writer has never seen a book of school music that
does not mention its desirability, nor hardly a reference to the
child-voice in the standard works or writings of the day of which this
idea has not formed a part.

The general direction "Sing softly" is good so far as it goes, but is,
first, indefinite. Softly and loudly are relative terms, and subject to
wide diversity of interpretation. The pianissimo of a cultivated singer
is silence compared to the tone emitted by vocalists of the main
strength order, when required to produce soft tone. Secondly, the
direction is seldom or never found coupled with instruction upon the
vocal compass of children. Hence, it does not seem very strange that the
injunction "Sing softly" has not corrected vocal errors in school
singing.

It is not easy, it is even impossible, to accurately define soft
singing, and no attempt will be made further than to describe as clearly
as may be the degree of softness which it is necessary to insist upon if
we would secure the use of the thin or head register.

The subject of register has already been discussed, but it may not be
amiss to repeat just here that in the child larynx as in the adult the
head-register is that series of tones which are produced by the
vibration of the thin, inner edges of the vocal band. If breathing is
natural, and if the throat is open and relaxed, no strain in singing
this tone is possible. It is evident in a moment that children with
their thin, delicate vocal ligaments can make this tone even more easily
than adult sopranos, whose vocal ligaments are longer and thicker; and
it is also perfectly evident that no danger of strain to the vocal bands
is incurred when this voice is used, for all the muscles and ligaments
of the larynx are under far less tension than is required for the
production of tones in the thick register.

It must also be remembered in connection with this fact, that children
often enter school at five years of age, and that according to
physiologists the larynx does not reach the full growth in _size_,
incidental to childhood until the age of six years. We must then be
particularly careful with infant classes-- for the vocal bands of
children pri