ght the music of Haendel and
Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children. The great thing is
that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear
the provincial Ecoles Normales performing choruses from _Fidelio, The
Messiah_, Schumann's _Faust_, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this
remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty
years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]

[Footnote 247: The _Poeme_ has been published in four parts:--I. _De la
naissance au mariage_ ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. _La Cite_ ("The
City"); III. _De l'age viril jusqu'a la mort_ ("From Manhood to Death");
IV. _L'Ideal_ ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.]

[Footnote 248: The last chorus of _Fidelio_ has been recently sung by
one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from
_The Messiah_ by the Ecoles Normales of Angouleme and Valence; and the
great choral scene and the last part of Schumann's _Faust_ by the two
Ecoles Normales of Limoges. At Valence, performances are given every
year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred
and a thousand teachers.

Outside the schools, especially in the North, a certain number of
teachers of both sexes have formed choral societies among work-girls and
co-operative societies, such as _La Fraternelle_ at Saint Quentin.

In a general way one may say that M. Maurice Buchor's campaign has
especially succeeded in departments like that of Aisne and Drome, where
the ground has been prepared by the Academy Inspector. Unhappily in many
districts the movement receives a lively opposition from music-teachers,
who do not approve of this mnemotechnical way of learning poetry with
music, without any instruction in solfeggio or musical science. And it
is quite evident that this method would have its defects if it were a
question of training musicians. But it is really a matter of training
people who have some music in them; and so the musicians must not be too
fastidious. I hope that great musicians will one day spring from this
good ground--musicians more human than those of our own time, musicians
whose music will be rooted in their hearts and in their country.]

[Footnote 249: We must not forget M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was his
forerunner with his _Chants de Fontenoy_, collections of songs for the
Ecoles Normales.]

M. Buchor's endeavours have been the most extensive and the most
fruitful, but he is not alon