I know one girl (I wish I could stop at the singular number) who cannot enjoy going to her own church because the choir does not come up to her standard of perfection.  She never sings in church herself.  To mingle her voice with the tide of thanksgiving and praise would be like the crystal flash of the arrowy Rhone into the muddy Arve.  She sets her teeth while ignorant and unfeeling neighbors join in the service of song, and confides on her way out of church to anybody who will listen to her that she really thinks it a misfortune to have as fine and true an ear as her own so long as people who do not know the first principle of music will persist in trying to sing.  She has many companions in the persuasion that this part of the worship of the sanctuary should be left altogether to a trained and well-salaried choir.  In the family honored by her residence there is no home music except of her making.  There are, moreover, so many contingencies that may deprive her expected audience of the rich privilege of hearkening to the high emprise of her fingers and voice, that the chances are oftentimes perilously in favor of her dying with all her music in her.

Shall I ever forget, or rally from, the compassionate patronage with which she, a week agone, met my petition for

     “When sparrows build and the leaves break forth?”

“I never sing ballad music,” she said, loftily.  “Indeed I could not do myself justice in anything this evening.  I make it a matter of conscience not to attempt a note unless I am in perfect tune throughout—­mentally, spiritually and physically.  I should consider it an offence against the noblest of arts were I to sing just because somebody wishes to hear me.”

This is not entirely affectation.  The tendency of her art-education has been to make her disdainfully hypercritical.  It has not awakened the spirit of the true artist, who is quick to detect whatever promises excellence and encourages the tyro to make the best of his little talent.

With all our newly-born enthusiasm for German composers, we have not taken lessons from the German people in this matter of home music.  We do not even ask ourselves what has made them a musical nation.  At the risk of writing myself down a hopeless old fogy, I venture the opinion that we were more nearly upon this track when the much-ridiculed singing-school was in full swing and every child was taught the intervals and variations of the gamut, and ballads were popular and part-songs by amateurs a favorite entertainment for evenings at home, than we are in this year of our Lord.  The pews in that age united with a volunteer choir in singing with the spirit and with the understanding.  The few may not have played their part as well as now, but the many did their part better.  In the family, Jane may have surpassed her sisters in musical talent and proficiency, but one and all knew something of that in which she excelled, enjoying her music the more for that degree of knowledge.  This brings forward another argument for the musical education of the masses, large and small.  It would make general and genuine appreciation of good music, and put an end to the specious pretences of which we spoke just now.  The German artisan’s ear and voice are cultivated from childhood; his love of music is intelligent, his enjoyment of it hearty, yet discriminating.