rogramme of teaching,[254] and a free school of choral singing
was started in Paris under the honorary chairmanship of M. Henry Marcel,
director of the Beaux-Arts, and under the direction of M. Radiguer.
Quite lately a choral society for young school-girls has been formed,
with the Vice-Provost as president and a membership of from six to seven
hundred young girls, who since 1906 have given an annual concert under
the direction of M. Gabriel Pierne. And lastly, at the end of 1907, an
association of professors was started to undertake the teaching of music
in the institutions of public instruction; its chairman was the
Inspector-General, M. Gilles, and its honorary presidents were M. Liard
and M. Saint-Saens. Its object is to aid the progress of musical
instruction by establishing a centre to promote friendly relations among
professors of music; by centralising their interests and studies; by
organising a circulating library of music and a periodical magazine in
which questions relating to music may be discussed; by establishing
communication between French professors and foreign professors; and by
seeking to bring together professors of music and professors in other
branches of public teaching.

[Footnote 254: _Revue Musicale_, December 15, 1903, and 1 and 15
January, 1904.]

All this is not much, and we are yet terribly behindhand, especially as
regards secondary teaching, which is considered less important than
primary teaching.[255] But we are scrambling out of an abyss of
ignorance, and it is something to have the desire to get out of it. We
must remember that Germany has not always been in its present plethoric
state of musical prosperity. The great choral societies only date from
the end of the eighteenth century. Germany in the time of Bach was
poor--if not poorer--in means for performing choral works than France
to-day. Bach's only executants were his pupils at the Thomasschule at
Leipzig, of which barely a score knew how to sing.[256] And now these
people gather together for the great _Maennergesangsfeste_ (choral
festivals) and the _Musikfeste_ (music festivals) of Imperial Germany.

[Footnote 255: "In this," says M. Buchor, "as in many other things, the
children of the people set an example to the children of the middle
classes." That is true; but one must not blame the middle-class children
so much as those in authority, who, "in this, as in many other things,"
have not fulfilled their duties.]

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