Mr. Collins: Pupils fail because they have not daily practice and intelligent teachers. If pupils were kept within their register, they would always sing. Teachers must co-operate heartily with principal.

Mr. N. Coe Stewart: The hope of the country in music is in the average teacher.

Mr. Prague, Racine, Wisconsin: Our city has produced no results. Have been singing by rote.

On motion. Appointment of committees postponed until the following day. Programme for Friday will be carried out Thursday.

Meeting adjourned.

SECOND SESSION.

TOPEKA, KANSAS, JULY 14, 1886.

Vice President Westcott in the chair.

Paper: What Music Instruction in Public Schools should be, by N. Coe Stewart.

Subject opened for discussion.

On motion, discussion of papers postponed until the reading of the following papers:

A New Notation or Better Teaching,-Which?

Boston, Massachusetts.

by H. E. Holt,

Tonic Sol-Fa Notation as a Factor in Musical Education, by T. F. Seward, New Jersey.

Subjects opened for discussion.

On motion, Mr. Seward made a presentation of the tonic sol-fa system. Vice President Westcott appoints a committee on nominations, consisting of Mr. Holt, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Collins. At the request of Vice President, Mr. Howard, of Boston, addressed the meeting. He urged the importance of a broader effort on the part of the teachers. We are apt to think more of the system than of the results. True music education takes hold of the heart, mind, and soul. Knowledge of harmony is what the teacher most needs.

Mr. Collins (speaking of representation before the sound): You can present to the eye what you cannot to the ear. Impressions made on the eye can have an effect on the mind that it can never have if made on the

ear.

Mr. Seward: After presenting an outline of the "tonic sol-fa" system said, I challenge the production of any one that has tried teaching the "tonic sol-fa" system faithfully and has given it up.

Miss Sara L. Dunning promptly accepts the above challenge and gives the names and places of several teachers.

Mr. Butler: If I have been successful in teaching music, it is because I have learned to teach other things first. I find some good points in all systems.

Mr. Sprague, Wisconsin: We have lost time in arguing about systems. I ask for the record of results.

Mr. Seward declines to act on committee of nominations. Mr. Sprague appointed.

Mrs. Lang: After three years' trial of the "tonic sol-fa" the singing is natural, the progress has been rapid, and the reading at sight good. This is due to the simplicity of the system.

Mr. Day, Cleveland: Teachers at first claimed that they could not teach singing, and did not like to try. This is now all changed, the teachers are having good success.

Mr. Griggs, Denver, Colorado: We have been using Mr. Holt's system in our schools, so far, with very good results. Teachers who at first were backward about teaching are now perfectly willing and even pleased that they are asked to teach music.

Mr. Guttery, Lansing: Have done away with a regular professional teacher, and we are now doing well with a director. We are using Mr. Holt's method.

Mr. Sli, Topeka: The pupils of Topeka are doing well, can sing at sight readily. We are using my own method.

On motion, committee on nominations will report at a called meeting on the following day.

HERBERT GRIGGS, Denver, Colorado.

Secretary, pro tem.

TOPEKA, KANSAS, July 16, 1886.

The Department of Music of the National Educational Association convened at the Congregational church, this P. M. Vice President, O. S. Westcott in the chair. In the absence of the Secretary, Professor H. E. Holt, of Boston, was appointed Secretary pro tem. The following report of the committee on nomination of officers was presented by the committee.

For President,-O. S. Westcott, Chicago.

For Vice Presidents,-N. Coe Stewart, Cleveland, Ohio, Herbert L. Griggs, Denver, Colorado.

Secretary, Edgar O. Silver, Boston.

Executive Committee,-L. W. Mason, Boston, T. F. Seward, Brick Church, New York, O. Blackman, Chicago, S. A. Collins, Xenia, Ohio, B. Jepson, New Haven, Connecticut.

Auxiliary Committee of Ladies,-Mrs. Hershey Eddy, Chicago, Miss

Lizzie O. Stearns, Detroit, Michigan, Mrs. M. E. Brand, Madison, Wisconsin, Mrs. E. H. Chamberlain, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Miss Sara L. Dunning, Malone, New York, Miss O. B. Lee, Ballston, New York, Miss Emily Madden, Argyle, New York.

The report was accepted and adopted and the officers, as reported, were

declared elected. Adjourned.

Signed,

H. E. HOLT,

Secretary, pro tem.

MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL.

BY O. S. WESTCOTT, CHICAGO, ILL.

Lazily reclining in a hammock at ten o'clock of a bright June morning, with nothing to break the silence of the elm grove around me, but the chirp of a sparrow, the whistle of a distant bobolink, and the harsh note of a more distant crow, I am led to conclude that the music evolved from the chords of the human animal, to be satisfactory to the auditors, should also be natural.

Not that no training should be allowed to furnish an added charm to the graces of vocal music, but that culture should never lose sight of nature, and thus have degenerated into mere mechanicalness the use of the musical gift. It should be the enlightened and truthful boast of every teacher in every science, that his method will bestow the needed culture and the necessary training without destroying or at all repressing the individuality. The child and the youth do not need a re-fashioning of either themselves or their voices, but only a suggestive guidance, by which they may be taught to augment their powers, without ignoring such as they naturally possess.

All children should be taught to sing. This "all" is used with only such limitations as would be implied by some actual, physical defect. Idiocy, paralysis, or any physical or mental disability so far forth shut off the individual afflicted, from a full claim to brotherhood in humanity, and from any expectance in enjoying its privileges, or receiving rewards of merit for well-directed exertion.

I knew an uncultured boy, who, with the love of music deeply implanted in his soul, attended an old-fashioned New England singing school for two evenings. During the second evening, he was interviewed by the Professor, and informed that, as it was evident that he had neither voice nor ear for music, his room was thenceforward more desirable than his company. Indeed, this idea was insisted on, to the extent of his being told that he must stay away, or the school would close, since his uncouth and barbarous tones were destroying the happiness and peace of mind of all the others who were anxious to reap the benefits of the winter singing school. And with a sense of unjust treatment rankling in his soul, the young man retired with a determination to know the science of music at any rate, and the art to any extent possible. After an experience with

various musical instruments, and after attitudinizing as singing school teacher, piano-forte instructor, et al., for some years, he has sometimes felt, if he could meet that itinerant, old-time professor, as if he would challenge him to some sort of a combat, musical or other, even if he ran the risk of being conquered and flayed alive for his presumptien, as was Marsyas.

In these days we profess to be more enlightened, and yet within two years I have seen many pupils dismissed from a singing class in a high school, because they had never sung. Suppose a teacher were professing to be starting an algebra class, and, having inquired what pupils had previously pursued this branch of mathematics, should conclude by dismissing all who were admittedly ignorant of the subject.

Too many teachers like to pose as educators rather than as instructors. They are willing to draw out whatever information the pupils have previously obtained from other sources, but exceedingly loth to expend the exertion requisite to building up the pupil by adding to the stock of knowledge already possessed.

But what is the object of vocal music as taught in public schools? Is the subject educational, or recreative, or both? And in the high school, which of these probable designs should take the precedence? In answer to this question, there will doubtless be developed a wide difference of opinion.

While it would seem, at first sight, that all time spent in school should be so employed as to give a resultant of positive intellectual growth, it is evident, that in the matter of vocal music, many good results are attainable, even if the question of mental improvement is kept to some extent in the background. The enlivening, invigorating effects of a cheerful song, even if learned by rote and sung with no scientific knowledge of written music, can hardly be over-estimated. And with the curricula of the public high schools so extensive as they now are, it would seem as if the recreative bias, which might be given to vocal music in the high schools, would be a desirable one.

The difficulty, unfortunately, is, that the teacher who is inclined in this direction, is too likely to be entirely neglectful of the matter of scientific training. Of the two, however, the over-scientific instructor is frequently the more objectionable. He plunges at once into the intricacies of the subject and at once disgusts and discourages all who are not favored with outside instruction.

I have known one of these scientific instructors puzzle a class of beginners at their second lesson, with the peculiarities of the melodic minor scale, and at the third lesson-a week later-become positively enraged, because they could not sing on call both major and minor triads on any tone as assigned. Perhaps if he had inculcated and allowed the use of