ion for the short, clear and
precise Arabic--how many centuries of feeble infancy the science of
mathematics passed before the invention of logarithms rendered the
most tedious calculations rapid and easy. Most people take things as
they seem, giving but little thought to their meanings and relations
to each other; and so an awkward method may be followed a long time
without protest. People are blamed for their devotion to routine, but
devotion to routine is perfectly natural. It is mental inertia, and
corresponds to that property in physics--the inability of a body of
itself to start when at rest, or stop or change its course when in
motion. And then the general distrust of new things--"new-fangled
notions," as contempt terms them--retards the examination and adoption
of improved and labor-saving methods.

It is more than fifty years since Pierre Galin, professor of
mathematics in the institute for deaf mutes at Bordeaux, published his
_Exposition d'une nouvelle Methode pour l'Enseignement de la Musique_,
and more than thirty since his distinguished disciple, Emile Cheve,
demonstrated practically, in the military gymnasium at Lyons,
the immeasurable superiority of that method; and yet such is the
repugnance of teachers of music to any change in their routine that
they have paid little or no attention to the work of Galin and his
followers. The _Methode elementaire de la Musique vocale_, by M. and
Mme. Emile Cheve, has never been translated into English. It was
published in Paris by the authors in 1851--a work of over five hundred
pages in royal octavo, and a most clear and exhaustive exposition of
the method which they followed with such success.

In proof of the superiority of that method, an account of M. Cheve's
test-experiment at the military gymnasium at Lyons in 1843 will be
interesting. The gymnasium was at that time under the direction of two
officers of the French army, Captain d'Argy and Lieutenant Grenier.
The facts are taken from their official report of the experiment.

By order of Lieutenant-General Lascours the soldiers of the gymnasium
were placed at the disposition of M. Cheve, that he might make a trial
of his method. General Lascours further ordered that the officers in
charge of the gymnasium should be present at every lesson, and report
carefully the progress of the pupils and the final results of the
course.

The members of the class were taken at large from the twelfth,
sixteenth and twenty-