514 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
sionally, a person as near as possible to the age of the high-school pupils, who shall sing 
‘or them. This example will help to create a desire for singing which will make the 
vork easier for the teacher and more fruitful to the learner. 
Mr. Grice, Denver, Colorado : I supposed music was an intellectual exercise as well, 
and thought it should not be employed ‘merely to amuse ; that if this method had to be 
smployed to interest the older pupils, there was something radically wrong in their ear- 
ier teaching, or they had had none at all. In order to learn to sing from notation, there 
nust be mental work, and that of a vigorous kind, for it requires sharp, quick, active 
shinking to make an expert singer, or even an average reader of music. There is of 
1ecessity some rather dry, laborious work to be done. and it must be done, or failure 
s the result. Children have to learn the multiplication table and think it dry 
and distasteful, but later on they see its use; so it is in learning to read music. We 
must teach the mechanical along with the asthetic, but not let the former take the 
olace of the latter and thus deaden the love of music. 
Miss HOFER, of Chicago: We must begin where it pleases the child and work from 
‘his point. We must lay our theories aside if we see that they are a hindrance to the 
proper development of the musical feelings of the child. 
MR. WATT: No mechanical exercises devoid of artistic merit, empty of all thought 
and feeling, should be used at all; and only artistic exercises should be used from the 
beginning. 
MR. GLOVER: There is too little importance given in the child's music to popular 
songs of a permanent character. Too little attention has been paid especially to the 
proper teaching of patriotic songs and the words that go along with them. No other 
nation is so slack in this matter as ours. I am glad that of late there is more of this 
teaching of patriotic songs being done, and 1 encourage the teachers to see that it is 
kept up. It has been said that on a steamer crossing the Atlantic there were several 
aations represented, and the representatives of each nation one evening engaged in 
singing their respective national airs. and when our nation’s turn came not a single 
American could remember all the words of ¢ America,” ¢ Star-spangled Banner,” or 
any other national air. I now ask all in the room to rise who can remember all the 
verses of ** Star-spangled Banner.” [Three persons only arose. ] 
MR. LAWRENCE : Americans are not equal to foreigners in the matter of words, nor 
n music either. The tune belongs to the words ; words are characteristically national, 
music not so much so. Lyric loses its beauty by translation, and cannot be translated. 
Music preserves its peculiar characteristic when adapted to words of another language. 
We sing ‘* My Country, ’tis of Thee,” in our tune ‘‘ America” ; the English sing * God 
save the Queen ” to the same tune. American songs should be made which are truly 
American. All songs worth learning at all should be committed to memory so that 
10 books are needed when singing. 
PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE OF THE VOCAL ORGANS. 
BY JOHN HOWARD. OF NEW YORK. 
The voice-teacher’s knowledge of the physiology and hygiene of the vocal organs. 
The degree of strain the vocal cords can endure without injury. at the periods of 
>rowth from five vears to fifteen years. 
CERTAINLY the more of vocal physiology the teacher knows, the better 
s he qualified to teach, even though his knowledge is confined to that 
furnished by the ordinary text-books used in the public school. He 
would be less likely to commit many more current errors, harmless enough 
n themselves, but ruinous when solidified into exercises to be given to the 
implicitly obedient pupil. 
Were there known and established laws even for the positions of the vocal