Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-05-04

the lessons more interesting ana would
teach them the Spontaneity and JOY of
song. So we picked out some simple airs
and gave them to the little ones, songs
about birds and flowers and spring and
might be called. most Of them from the
German. Indeed, I should have been lost
without the beautiful melodies of Ger
man music. These songs were given to the
schools, as 1 say, and the children learned
them by rote, and oh, how they do sing
them even yet, with their soft, pretty
voices, and their sweet faces looking as if
they enjoyed every note This was the des-
sert of the feast. We keep these rote songs
as part of the system now in the first
three grades.
The Progress Made.
after two years the children began to
read fiuently and we returned then to the
old singing books and took up the songs
that formerly were drilled into them by
sheer force of lung power. There was
great difference in the results, l can as
sure you. And so we have gone, making
little advance each year, and gradually
spreading the system until each grade now
has some pupils in it who have been in
structed under the new plan, while the
higher grades have pupils who have been
drilled under both the new and the old 1t
Will be four or five years yet before every
child in the entire public school system,
from the first grade to the last year in the
high school, has been taught only the pres
ent system. Up to now the work has been
only foundation building, but now we have
begun to construct.
Last yer we worked on the lines that
lead to quality in tone, and strove, oh, so
hard, to ease the tension under which the
children sang. We learned that lack of
tension was the secret of natural and there
fore of good singing. The perfect voice
means perfect freedom, though, of course
this equation is not reversible, as perfect
freedom does not mean a perfect voice
But we must have the freedom of body
perfect
voice So we try to get the children to
sing in perfectly easy attitude, make
them shrug their shoulders about until
they are perfectly flexible and if there is
a frown on their brows We straighten that
out. No one can sing well who is frown-
ing. These are little things, but they so
to the seat of all the trouble.
Instructins the Teachers.
zone of the great troubles was that
many of the teachers themselves did not
know how to teach music, and some CT
them were even ignorant of the intervals.
So we established classes of teachers-you
must remember that the work of teaching
singing is done by the teachers of the
grades, and that the singing instructors
do not visit the schools excepting at inter-
Vals-and these classes met at the Franklin
every Saturday. 1t was purely voluntary,
but there was a good attendance. At times
there were sixty teachers assembled here
at once.
Now. the Boston authorities tell me that
our schools of all grades are ahead of the
whole country in the matter of tone quail
ity. and that our first three grades can
compete with any in the country of equal
grades in the matter of sight reading. We
shall go on in this way, endeavoring to
establishing the system in every grade,
until all the schools are on the same basis,
and meantime We shall adopt every new
feature of teaching that Is at all good"
The reporter accompanied Miss Scammell
after this talk to one of the fifth grade
school rooms in the Franklin building,
which she makes her headquarters, and
there listened to brief singing lesson,
that, while perfectly true in tone and key,
could not be heard across the hallway.
the little girls sang easily and naturally,
and after going through a few notes to
try the intervals. they did a little song
about the snow that was very pretty and
neatly done.
Future Voice Development.
Miss Scammell said as they left the room:
1--WE can make those voices stronger at
any time when it is advisable to do so.
There Is foundation there for future de-
velopmert. l hava no doubt that among
the $4,000 children in the schools who are
under this system of teaching there are
scores of wonderful voices, which are be-
ing fostered by this plan, and can be
raised to their full power when they are
matured. They are not being killed now,
at any rate, as they might have been un-
der the old system"
In the sixth grade school, next visited
the girls sang at sight few phrases from
Mozart and other great composers and
then Miss Scammell gave an example of
rote teaching. by drawing curves to rep
resent the verses of song about the daisy
OF. the blackboard, and noting the leading
word in each verse. In astonishingly
short time the girls were singing the verse
as though they had known 1t forever.
Two great concerts will be given by the
pupils of the schools in June to demon
strate what has been accomplished during
the past five years. This will be the first
public exhibition of singing since the new
system was ADOPTED, and is being worked
for with energy by both teachers and pu-
pills. There will be two successive con-
certs. one by 500 voices selected from the
sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and enc
by 500 voices from the high schools.
II will be all chorus work, though there
may be an instrumental solois.. Mrs. En-
est Lent of this city will be the accom-
parist. The services of Mr.. Tomlins, for
merly director of music in the Chicago
schools and choral director of the worlds
fair music. have been secured to lead these
voices, and he will be here May %, and
spend fortnight in the work Of drilling
the choruses.