516 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
To speak in the first person, as now seems necessary, I appear to have 
proved to myself that these two opinions are diametrically opposed to the 
;ruth. All phonation, all vocal production, seems to me to be a refined 
avolution of that constriction in closing effort which is the function of the 
alimentary canal in the lower orders of animals; while the advice to relax 
[ supplant by the instruction to make positively the effort of contraction ; 
and it may be added that, with the exception of the tongue muscles (those 
constituting the tongue itself) and of one other muscle, the stronger the 
sfforts the more beautiful the tones, both soft and loud. 
Now the query naturally arises: If I, for one, have studied faithfully 
nearly all methods in recent or earlier vogue, and have arrived at such dif- 
ferent conclusions, how can I best advise the teacher to qualify himself 
physiologically to study and experiment with any chance of success ? My 
counsel would be to learn by dissection—for the clearest diagrams are 
misleading—the actual shape, substance, and relative position of the vocal 
parts, just as the physician or laryngologist does. 
Next, the teacher should study the standard physiologies, especially the 
German, Houle and Luschka, both of whom describe the anatomy of the 
vocal parts and append the single office or probable office of each separate 
muscle. He should not confine himself to the muscles of the larynx itself, 
but give especial attention to all those which extend from the larynx and its 
‘nseparable companion, the hyoid bone (just above the larynx), to other 
parts. Ie should see how these extrinsic muscles pull upon the Adam’s 
apple directly or indirectly ; should learn how different combinations of 
these muscles pull ; what effect they have upon the consistency of the 
different parts of the throat, and in what ways they conflict with each other. 
Then should come the application : Since these muscles are all of them 
voluntary, the teacher should get each one under separate, voluntary con- 
trol, so that he could contract one at a time or put two together at the 
instant of starting the voice. The different effects produced, the changes 
of quality or power, would suggest further and more valuable combina- 
tions, new and easier modes of gaining this separate muscle government, 
and soon really valuable exercises might be evolved. 
There is absolutely no other mode of investigation upon which full 
reliance can be placed. So greatly do the muscular habits of throat vary 
with different vocalists, that there cannot possibly be any little knacks of 
nniversal application. There is the vocal function, possessed by every 
one. There is the beautiful tone of artistic singing, which is an enlarge- 
ment of the natural function, and is possessed, practically, by no one. 
This enlargement of tone, extension of compass, and unnaturally beauti- 
ful quality are the result of additional muscular efforts made by the large 
extrinsic muscles of the throat, nearly all of which may be either felt or 
seen—such as the palate muscles, those of the tongue, cheek, lips, and 
even of the lower throat.