from over-activity, and loss of power in the ten men because of muscles unused.  Clergyman’s sore throat is almost always explainable in this way; and there are many laymen with constant trouble in the throat from no cause except the misuse of its muscles in talking.  “The old philosopher said the seat of the soul was in the diaphragm.  However that may be, the word begins there, soul and body; but you squeeze the life out of it in your throat, and so your words are born dead!” was the most expressive exclamation of an able trainer of the voice.

Few of us feel. that we can take the time or exercise the care for the proper training of our voices; and such training is not made a prominent feature, as it should be, in all American schools.  Indeed, if it were, we would have to begin with the teachers; for the typical teacher’s voice, especially in our public schools, coming from unnecessary nervous strain is something frightful.  In a large school-room a teacher can be heard, and more impressively heard, in common conversational tones; for then it is her mind that is felt more than her body.  But the teacher’s voice mounts the scale of shrillness and force just in proportion as her nervous fatigue increases; and often a true enthusiasm expresses itself—­or, more correctly, hides itself—­in a sharp, loud voice, when it would be far more effective in its power with the pupils if the voice were kept quiet.  If we cannot give time or money to the best development of our voices, we can grow sensitive to the shrill, unpleasant tones, and by a constant preaching of “lower your voices,” “speak more quietly,” from the teacher to herself, and then to her pupils, from mother to child, and from every woman to her own voice, the standard American voice would change, greatly to the national advantage.

I never shall forget the restful pleasure of hearing a teacher call the roll in a large schoolroom as quietly as she would speak to a child in a closet, and every girl answering in the same soft and pleasant way.  The effect even of that daily roll-call could not have been small in its counteracting influence on the shrill American tone.

Watch two people in an argument, as the excitement increases the voice rises.  In such a case one of the best and surest ways to govern your temper is to lower your voice.  Indeed the nervous system and the voice are in such exquisite sympathy that they constantly act and react on each other.  It is always easier to relax superfluous tension after lowering the voice.

“Take the bone and flesh sound from your voice” is a simple and interesting direction.  It means do not push so hard with your body and so interfere with the expression of your soul.  Thumping on a piano, or hard scraping on a violin, will keep all possible expression from the music, and in just the same proportion will unnecessary physical force hide the soul in a voice.  Indeed with the voice—­because the instrument is finer—­the contrast between Nature’s way and man’s perversion is far greater.