the
house of one of my friends, who was superintendent of the immense insane
asylum in Clermont-sur-Oise. He had a small organ, and was a tolerably
good singer. I composed a mass, to the first performance of which we
invited a few artists from Paris and several of the most docile inmates
of the asylum. I was struck with the bearing of the latter, and asked my
friend to repeat the experiment, and extend the number of invitations.
The result was so favorable, that we were soon able to form a choir from
among the patients, of both sexes, who rehearsed on Saturdays the hymns
and chants they were to sing on Sunday at mass. A raving lunatic, a
priest, who was getting more and more intractable every day, and who
often had to be put in a strait-jacket, noticed the periodical absence
of some of the inmates, and exhibited curiosity to know what they were
doing. The following Saturday, seeing some of his companions preparing
to go to rehearsal, he expressed a desire to go with them. The doctor
told him he might go on condition that he would allow himself to be
shaved and decently dressed. This was a thorny point, for he would never
attend to his person, and became furious when required to dress; but, to
our great astonishment, he consented at once. This day he not only
listened to the music quietly, but was detected several times joining
his voice with that of the choir. When I left Clermont, my poor old
priest was one of the most constant attendants at the rehearsals. He
still had his violent periods, but they were less frequent; and when
Saturday arrived, he always dressed himself with care, and waited
impatiently for the hour to go to chapel.

To resume: Music being a _physical agent_,--that is to say, acting on
the individual without the aid of his intelligence; a _moral
agent_,--that is to say, reviving his memory, exciting his imagination,
developing his sentiment; and a _complex agent_,--that is to say, having
a physiological action on the instinct, the organism, the forces, of
man,--I deduce from this that it is one of the most powerful means for
ennobling the mind, elevating the morals, and, above all, refining the
manners. This truth is now so well recognized in Europe that we see
choral societies--Orpheons and others--multiplying as by enchantment,
under the powerful impulse given them by the state. I speak not simply
of Germany, which is a singing nation, whose laborious, peaceful,
intelligent people have in all time a