or emotion intended.

Is it not strange that a student of the piano or violin is willing to
devote perhaps ten years to the study of the technique of his
instrument, while the voice-user expects to succeed with a period of
vocal practice extending over a year or two, possibly even only a few
months?

When the anatomy and physiology of the larynx are considered, it will
be seen that the muscular mechanisms concerned in voice-production are
of a delicacy unequalled anywhere in the body except possibly in the
eye and the ear. And when it is further considered that these
elaborate and sensitive mechanisms of the larynx are of little use
except when adequately put into action by the breath-stream, which
again involves hosts of other muscular movements, and the whole in
relation to the parts of the vocal apparatus above the larynx, the
mouth, nose, etc., it becomes clear that only long, patient, and
_intelligent_ study will lead to the highest results.

It should also be remembered that such an apparatus can easily acquire
habits which may last for life, for good or ill, artistically
considered. Such delicate mechanisms can also be easily injured or
hopelessly ruined; and, as a matter of fact, this is being done daily.
A great musical periodical has made the statement that thousands of
voices are being ruined annually, in America alone, by incompetent
teaching. My experience when a practising laryngologist made me
acquainted with the extent of the ruin that may be brought about by
incorrect methods of using the voice, both as regards the throat and
the voice itself; and contact with teachers and students has so
impressed me with the importance of placing voice-production on a
sound foundation, not only artistic but physiological, that I have
felt constrained to tell others who may be willing to hear me what I
have learned as to correct methods, with some reference also to wrong
ones, though the latter are so numerous that I shall not be able to
find the space to deal at length with them.

The correct methods of singing and speaking are always, of necessity,
physiological. Others may satisfy a vitiated or undeveloped public
taste, but what is artistically sound is also physiological. None have
ever sung with more ease than those taught by the correct methods of
the old Italian masters; as none run so easily as the wisely trained
athlete, and none endure so well. People in singing and speaking will,
as in other cases, get