The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-17 00:00:00

ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC.

The following letter and particulars as to the forth-
coming examination for scholarships in the Royal
College of Music are now being sent to the various
local examiners by order of the Prince of Wales :
"Kensington-gore, S.W., London, March 10,`1383.
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" Sir,—rn answer to the invitation of the Prince of
Wales, the Board has nominated you, for the
year ending November 9, 1883, as one of three honorary
local examiners for the above town and neighbour-
hood, to conduct, on behalf oh the Royal College
of Music, the preliminary examinations for scholar-
ships. His Royal Highness now instructs me to
express his great satisfaction at your willingness
thus to aid him in promoting this national object,
in relation to the art to which you belong, and thereby
enabling the preliminary examinations to take place
without any fee being charged to the candidates.
His Royal Highness has been pleased to ratify your
nomination in a document which I will shortly for.
ward. The examinations will take place at the
hall in Easter week, beginning on March 29. On ,1
their conclusion I shall be much obliged if you and
your brother examiners will forward, at the earliest
convenient date, and not later than April 7, a report
on each candidate, upon forms that will be duly
supplied to you. Any remarks you may make
on the candidates will be treated as strictly pri-
vate and confidential. The object of this pre-
liminary examination is to select only those
candidates who will have a reasonable hope of
success when they proceed to the final competition
before the Director and the Board of Professors at the
College in London. The number of scholarships to be
awarded on the present occasion is 50, and the final
competitions will necessarily be very exacting; it will,
therefore, be only exciting false hopes and causing the
candidates unnecessary expense to recommend those
who are not likely to have any chance in so severe a
contest. The names of the candidates to be examined
by you and your colleagues will be forwarded in due
course. In the event of their being no pianoforte in
the building selected for the examination, I trust
that the examiners will be kind enough to provide
one, the charge for the hire of which, if any, will be
Paid be the College.—' am, &0., CHABLIS MOBLBT,
Hon. See.
" Instructions to honorary looal examiners.—General
principles.—The preliminary examinations are in-
tended to show that the candidate has sufficient
natural ability and promise as to be able to profit by
the instruction of the College, and are intended to tent
musical capacity or promise rather than actual per-
formance. Attention is therefore to be directed, in
the case of instrumentalists, to intelligent phrasing
and signs of genuine musical feeling and instinct;
and, in the case of singers, to quality of voice and
good ear, rather than to powers oi execution or com-
pass of voice
" It is desirable to ascertain if candidates have any
ability ir composition, and a candidate may, therefore,
be invited to show some written music of his own
composing, and to play or sing it, 80 as to give the
examiners an opportunity of judging.
"In filling up the forms, the particulars as to name,
age, description of music, &c., should be first inserted ;
then the results of the examination as they are er-
rived at; and finally, either the word ' Selected ' or
'Rejected' should be crossed out, and the report
signed.
"In the event of difference of opinion among the
examiners as to the selection or rejection of any can.
didate, vote by ballot is suggested.
"The examiners should inquire how long the can-
' didates have been in training in the subject or subjects
in which they are examined in order that an opinion
may be formed as to whether their competency arises
from training or from natural ability.
"Order of examination.—Candidates should be re-
quired to (I), play or sing selections from the pieces
they bring ; (2), answer questions as to time, key,
values of notes, and the meaning of signs and marks of
expression which may occur in the pieces performed,
and also, if possible, as to the modulations introduced,
or, at least, the more simple ones; (3), play or sing
(vocalize) any scales asked for; special attention should
be given to correctness of intonation in the case of
vocalists or players of stringed instruments • (4), read at
sight the piece or pieces of music which will supplied
from the College; (5), play or sing from memory; (6),
read aloud a short passage from some standard English
work and write a fewlines of Englieh from dictation, as
a test of general education and intelligence. Additional
tests to he imposed for ,a higher degree of talent, at the
option of 'the examiners, are (7), transposing, either at
first sight or of a passage already learnt; 8, modulat-
ing between keys named by the examiners so as to test
grammatical knowledge; (9), preluding or extemporiz-
ing; (10), naming, by ear, notes or combinations of
notes struck by the examiner.
GEORGE GROVE, Director."

MR. SAMUEL MORLEY, MP; ON
CHURCH WORK.

On Monday evening Mr. S. Morley, M.P., occupied
the chair at a public meeting held at the Surrey
Chapel, Blackfriars-road, London, in celebration of
the fourth anniversary of the Rev. B. Senior's
pastorate, and also "to express thanks that a portion
of the property" known since the days of Rowland
Hill as the Surrey Chapel, has been secured for
Divine worship.
Mr. Morley, having expressed his sympathy with
the objects of the meeting, remarked that the work
in which his hearers were engaged was of national
importance. As Christian influence entered into the
cottages, the homes of the people, so, he argued,
would purity, morality, and real life—that higher
life—be given. As a national safety might Christian
people look on the question, while they endeavoured
to bring others to this higher life. To make men
Christians, observed Mr. Morley, did not necessarily
mean to make them ssiembers of a particular sect or
school. He had been struck with an appalling fact,
alluded to by Lord Shaftesbury, that we are living over
a volcano, and that, with people living under a condi-
tion which induces total indifference to places of wor-
ship, or of religion, there was need on the part of Chris-
tians for tenfold earnestness. He thought the common
people—as they were designated by some—were never
mere easy of approach by ministers of the Gospel than
at the present day. He had, after fully considering
the question come to the conclusion that they must
look after the social position as well as the spiritual
comfort of the people. The daily life of the masses
must be taken into consideration, the sympathies of
the people must be enlisted, or rather the masses must
be sympathised with.