•328 Br. Felix Semon [Marcli 13, 



to continue the training of a favourite pupil's voice into this period 

 of disturbance, during which physiological rest is absolutely wanted. 

 The result in most cases will bo lasting loss of voice ; inasmuch as 

 all the organs here concerned are of such a delicate nature that once 

 hopelessly overstrained they are not likely ever to return to normal 

 conditions. 



I am perfectly well aware that different opinions exist on this 

 question ; that some singers as well as some laryngologists have 

 expressed themselves in favour of a continued training through the 

 period of adolescence, and that so and so many cases are quoted in 

 which such a training has been continued throughout this trying 

 period without any lasting harm resulting, the pupil on the contrary 

 finally attaining eminence in the vocal profession. To all this I 

 simply reply that I do not doubt the occurrence of exceptions, but 

 that such exceptions the more confirm the rule, and that if a census 

 were taken with regard to the number of those voices which have baen 

 irretrievably ruined by premature vocal training during the period of 

 adolescence in proportion to those in which no harm has resulterl, 

 undoubtedly a large excess on the side of harm having resulted would 

 be shown. Indeed a census of this nature has been taken by Messrs. 

 Behnke and Browne in their little work, ' The Child's Voice,' and 

 the result based upon collective investigation, in which a very large 

 number of competent physiological authorities, teachers of singing 

 and singers took part, iucontrovertibly points in the same direction 

 in which my observations are going. All I can say is that if I had a 

 child, boy or girl, gifted with an exceptionally fine voice, I should 

 not allow it even to make the experiment. 



If a voice is really worth training, be it for professional use or 

 for private amusement only, it is certainly worth — provided that 

 external circumstances permit — having from the very beginning a 

 very good teacher. No greater mistake, I think, could be made than 

 to confide so comj)lex an apparatus as the vocal one is, at first for so- 

 called elementary tuition to the tender mercies of a teacher, who has 

 not the faintest idea either of the j)hysiology of the vocal organs or 

 of the recognised and valuable modes of educating this apparatus, 

 and who, by wrong tuition, either hopelessly spoils all the material 

 that has been confided to him, or at any rate engenders bad habits, 

 wrong muscular combinations, wrong habitudes of the sounding board 

 of the voice, which afterwards only with the greatest j^ossible difiicul- 

 ties can be eradicated even by the most competent successor he 

 may have. 



The necessity of selecting from the very beginning of the pupil's 

 vocal carter a really good teacher, is too obvious to be insisted upon 

 at length. A really good master of singing will first of all take 

 infinite pains to ascertain the true character of the pupil's voice. He 

 will not make the mistake, but too often committed, of educating a 

 contralto as a soprano or a baritone as a tenor, simply because there 

 are a few fine high notes in the pui^il's voice ; nor will he at all 



