some singing in a village school during his vacation, and realized how much his own boys were missing.

The

This section is headed MUSIC IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, but it may be necessary to remark, for those who are not familiar with the work of these schools, that the singing-class is the only official provision for the teaching of music, at present. At a first glance this may seem to be a limited thing, and the teaching may appear to be easy to provide for ; but where the ideal is high this is by no means the case. subject includes the physical side of singing—the proper use of the breathing apparatus and of the voice mechanism. These branches alone, in other circles, call for the life study of specialists. The singing-class provides also for the training of the ear and of the eye, and is concerned in addition with presenting to the children nearly all their early impressions of what the art of music is in its wider aspects. The responsibilities of the teachers are therefore heavy, and it is remarkable to find here and there great success won in all these branches by teachers who are not specialists, whose own gifts and opportunities have been limited, and whose spare time is largely occupied with the preparation of lessons in other subjects of the curriculum. Where success is attained it is due largely to organization. Special musical powers on the part of the teachers will do much, but continuity of work with the children from infancy onwards is still more potent. The poorest results are to be witnessed in the schools where infants and seniors isolate themselves, and where even within one department the class-groups are separated by a kind of mental bulkhead. It is quite impossible, we repeat, to tackle effectively this great composite subject within the nine years or so of school

life, unless a real continuity is secured. This is sometimes done by means of Staff Conferences, sometimes by means of a Syllabus carefully followed and overlooked by a musical head teacher, sometimes by a mild form of specialization. All these plans work well when they are adopted with goodwill, and it is not at all necessary to sink down despondently and decide that the task is too great for the ordinary school class and teacher to tackle successfully. Some schools have specialized in vocal tone; some have secured efficiency in the mental branches by neglecting the tone; but these compromises are uncalled for when the whole work is properly graded. Vocal faults should be almost absent from the senior classes, because it is possible to establish good tone and articulation quite early in school life; Ear-training should be well in hand in the Infant School; and when the allied subjects such as Speech-training and Physical-exercise are also made to help and not to hinder the singing, every normal class can excel in each part of the subject, while the sub-normal classes can reach a somewhat lower ideal in all the branches without neglecting any.

We used to hear a good deal of what was called the Board School voice. The term was a misnomer and very unjust. It carried with it a sneer, and an implication that a certain raucous kind of tone was due to the schools the truth was that this tone was the normal untrained voice of the majority of the social grades that filled the Board Schools-a tone which the schools were fighting hard to improve. The fight began in the Training Colleges, and it is now the exception rather than the rule to meet with that kind of voice amongst either teachers or taught. So far as the children were concerned, it must be remembered that they spent

only from twenty-five to twenty-seven and a half hours a week under the school influence, most of which time was devoted to other subjects than speech or song, as against all their evenings, week-ends and holidays spent in the home, the playground and the street. In the Elementary Schools there were always some teachers with sensitive ears who maintained a high ideal of vocal tone, and during the last twenty years their numbers have increased greatly. Regular, efficient breathing exercises, and careful practice of vowel sounds, are now established as essentials in all the best schools, and in London a special impetus has been given to the movement for improving voice-use by the establishment of courses of lectures by experts. An important step was taken when a chapter on Breathing was incorporated in the Recommendations of a Conference on Speech Training held in 1915, while in the following year some supplementary agreements were come to in consultation with Organizers of Physical Instruction and a School Medical Officer. These Recommendations are in the hands of all teachers in the London Service, and are also available for others in a pamphlet on Class Singing issued in 1917.1

The Elementary Schools have based the mental part of their music-training on the Tonic Sol-fa system, with its acceptance of ear-training as fundamental and all else as superstructure. The thing, the name, the sign, is the order of presentation, whereas in the old bad type of so-called music-teaching (pianoforte playing) the sign and the mechanism of the instrument claimed all attention, leaving pupils unable to name the

1 Class Singing and Ear Training in Schools, published by P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 2 & 4 Gt. Smith Street, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. Price 2d.

simplest of musical combinations when heard. The specialist music-teacher of the past, who dealt with individual children, often signally failed to train them for any true grasp of music itself; but the nonspecialist school-teacher, who had to deal with classes of fifty or more children at a time, was successful in making real musicians of a good many of them by the aid of the Tonic Sol-fa system, with its direct appeal to the ear, first and foremost. The value of Tonic Sol-fa as an elucidator of the Staff-Notation is now recognized by many musicians who formerly despised it, while the school-teacher is now alive to the possibility of giving children a decent working knowledge of the Staff-Notation through the aid of the Tonic Sol-fa, with its single scale and single unit of Time.

Recent additions to the ear-training work in the schools have been made through the realization of the need for treating Music as Literature is treated. It is. no longer thought sufficient to give children only such music as they can perform with their voices, but it is also found both possible and desirable to bring them into touch with music of larger calibre by means of Appreciation" lessons. These are not provided for as yet in the official curriculum, but the enthusiastic teacher can always be trusted to go a good deal beyond minimum requirements when convinced of the desirability of doing so. Little children are being taught to appreciate the "Form" of simple tunes, their building up by phrases, their harmonic background, and so forth. They are being led to feel the moods of music, beginning, of course, with those which are obvious, such as the simple contrasts of quick and slow, sad and merry measures, tripping dances and stately marches. The journey from these beginnings towards

the appreciation of an orchestral symphony is continuous, and not so long as it was once thought to be. For this part of the work a pianoforte and a player of skill are essential, but some teachers have obtained excellent results with the aid of a gramophone, in the absence of any better means of presentation.

Another recent fillip to the rhythmic side of musical training has been given through the propaganda of the Jaques-Dalcroze System. Much that is quite unsuitable for large classes and for Elementary School children is included in the System; but its earlier steps, consisting of listening for rhythms and illustrating them with physical movements, have been introduced with success in many schools, and the movement is rapidly growing.

In the earlier days of the Elementary Schools, when instrumental accompaniment was scarce or non-existent, the bareness of unison singing led to the gradual provision of a mass of school music in two, three, or even more voice-parts. The natural craving for harmony was thus satisfied, and the children received a useful education for after-life as part-singers. The thirty per cent. or so of girls who were normally destined to become adult contraltos, and the boys who would ultimately become tenors or basses, thus acquired the power to hold an under part. Lately, partsinging has been somewhat decried on account of the injury which was sometimes done to young children's voices by the employment of the extremes of their compass, but there is no need for such injury to be done. Part-music for children must be carefully selected to avoid an undue use of the extremes, and preliminary voice-training must be thorough. If these safeguards are observed there is no reason why