1891.] 



161 



"She has spoken for herself as to this portion of her experience and it 

 seems most appropriate to quote her own words: 



" 'As I had had for many years the best teaching, both German and 

 Italian, in the art of singing, and had often sung with favor in concerts, 

 1 was led to believe myself qualified to become a teacher of this art, but I 

 had hardly undertaken the office before I felt that while I was able to 

 teach my pupils to execute pieces of music with tolerable accuracy and 

 with the appropriate expression, I was wanting in the knowledge of any 

 sure starting point, any sound principle from which to proceed in the 

 special culture of any individual voice. In order to obtain the knowl- 

 edge which thus appeared to be requisite in a teacher of vocal music, I 

 examined the best schools of singing, and when I learned nothing from 

 them that I did not already know, I sought the most celebrated teachers 

 of singing, to learn what was wanting ; but what one teacher announced 

 to me as a rule was usually rejected by another. Every teacher had his 

 own peculiar system of instruction. No one could give me any definite 

 reason therefor, and the best assured me that so exact a method as I sought 

 did not exist, and that every teacher must find his own way through his 

 own experience. In such a state of darkness and uncertainty to 

 undertake to instruct others appeared to me a manifest wrong, for 

 in no branch of instruction can the ignorance of the teacher do 

 greater injury than in the teaching of vocal music. This I unhappily 

 learned from my own personal experience when under the tuition of a 

 most eminent teacher I entirely lost my voice, whereby the embarrassment 

 I was under, so far from being diminished, was only increased. After this 

 misfortune, I studied under Fredeiick Wiek, in Dresden (the father and in- 

 structor of Clara Schumann), in order to become a teacher on the piano, 

 but while I thus devoted myself to this branch of teaching exclusively, it 

 became from that time the aim and the effort of my life to obtain such a 

 knowledge of the human voice as is indispensable to a natural and healthy 

 development of its beautiful powers. 



" 'I availed myself of every opportunity to hear Jenny Lind, who was 

 then dwelling in Dresden, and to learn all that I could from her. I like- 

 wise hoped from a protracted abode in Italy, the land of song, to obtain 

 the fulfillment of my wishes, but beyond certain practical advantages, I 

 gathered there no sure or radical knowledge. 



" 'In the French method of instruction, now so popular (1868), I found 

 the same superficiality and uncertainty that existed everywhere else. But 

 the more deeply I was impressed with this state of things, and the more 

 fully I became aware of the injurious and trying consequences of the 

 method of teaching followed at the present day, the more earnestly was I 

 impelled to press onward in search of light and clearness in this dim 

 domain. 



" ' Convinced that ouly by the way of scientific investigation the desired 

 end could be reached, I sought the counsel of Prof. Helmholtz, in 

 Heidelberg. This distinguished man was then engaged in a scientific 



