Others, instead of thinking, “I will try for the present to do better than others have done,” so harass and torment the poor mortal voices with their aim at perfect equality and perfect beauty of tone, the result often is that every thing becomes unequal and far from beautiful.  Some teachers make their pupils so anxious and troubled that, owing to their close attention to the tone, and the breath, and the pronunciation, they sing their songs in an utterly wooden manner, and so in fact they, too, are lost in optimism and in tears; whereas, for singing, a happy confidence in the ability to succeed is essential.  Others pursue an opposite course, and are guilty of worse faults, as you will see if you look around.  Some of them have no standard of perfection, but use up the time in an exchange of ideas with their pupils, with mysterious and conceited “ifs” and “buts.”  They are very positive, but only within the narrow circle of their own ideas.  They make no advance in a correct medium path.  Some allow pupils to practise only staccato, and others only legato, aiming thereby at nobody knows what.  Some allow them to sing too loud, others too feebly; some philosophize earnestly about beauty in the voice, and others grumble about unpleasantness in the same; some are enthusiastic about extraordinary talents, others fret about the want of talent; some have a passion for making all the sopranos sing alto, others do just the reverse; some prefer a shadowy, others a clear voice.  They all rest their opinions upon the authority of some famous screaming-master who has written a singing-system.  Upon like authority, some cultivate chiefly the deep tones, because it is very fine, and “creates an effect,” for soprano voices to be able suddenly to sing like men, or rather to growl, and because it is the fashion in Paris.  Others, on the contrary, pride themselves upon the head-tones; but they are none of them willing to pay much attention to the medium voices:  that is too critical and too delicate a matter, and requires too much trouble, for the modern art of singing.  As a last resort, they bethink themselves of kind Nature, and lay the blame upon her.

Well, I will say no more upon this point, but will proceed.  Have I not already, in my piano instructions, insisted on the importance of a gradual and careful use of every proper expedient to extend, strengthen, beautify, and preserve the voice?  I am thought, however, to infringe upon the office of the singing-masters, who hold their position to be much more exalted than that of the poor piano-teacher.  Still, I must be allowed to repeat that voices are much more easily injured than fingers; and that broken, rigid voices are much worse than stiff, unmanageable fingers, unless, after all, they amount to the same thing.  I demand of singing-teachers that they show themselves worthy of their position, and allow no more voices to go to destruction, and that they give us some satisfactory