The San Francisco call., 1898-08-14

} 600 0o000 @ 0 @ o @ @ sitional stage, for there is the most in l timate and powerful connection be- l tween the voice and the emotions, and | that is, indeed, where the strength or music lies But after two, or perhaps three years, he can sing freely agaln, ! Incidentally the better for his early training, and his voice will catch up with his feet during the resting time, at about the rate of one years growth in a month.'
 What about the girls. MT. Tomlins?"
 "A girls voice needs rest, too, and for the same reasons, but with her there Is not so marked a change. There is another thing about the child-voice which has not been sufficiently noted by the teachers of children, and that is its naturally high compass. The mans voice below, the woman's voice between and the childs above is the order of nature. l have taken thou- sand children from the streets and slums of Chicago, from the poorest, hardest lives, and within few months they have sung, with utmost ease, the high c, time and again, before hun dreds of astonished hearers. But It is the spirit of song which average teachers most lamentably miss; they don't know where to look for 1t. It is within, within, and they work from | without, trying to force an unfamiliar phantasm of their own imagination into | the mouth of a child, when the golden | germ is within the heart of every one of them.
 "Then the children must be taught to use both mind and heart in their sing ing. Singing only from the heart Is like the flying of a bird with one wing he Hops. But given the balance or mind, the child wings his way to the highest earth knows.
 "When I first get hold of a class of children taught to sing in the old way I have difficulty In shaking the self consciousness out of them. I have sometimes to resort to the queerest methods of putting 1t to flight.
 "As to those who wish to play some instrument, as we'll as use their voices ask often that they take up the vio- lin or cello; that with the numberless pianos some form of chamber music shall be open to them There is noth- ing like chamber music for keeping the home together and the son from the saloon Then along with the love of music we try to teach the worship of nature the love of beautiful scenery; the grace of bending flowers and bril- liant butterflies; the aerial flight and pictured loveliness; the beauty of men and women and little children; then, and then only, can the supreme love for one, which later comes, come safely, naturally and normally: for when the love of all things beautiful finds but one object on which to spend | itself 1t Is rather a monster than an angel of light!"
 Lafcadio Hearn, by the way, voices | much the same opinion in his irritat- | ingy apt paper on the Eternal Femi- | nine" In an ancient Atlantic Monthly, | but his is the directly masculine wis | ion, from which the feminine stand | point Is most cruelty withheld Strong | ly masculine Is William L. Tomlins also; but his strength is tempered with tenderness and his is the quick intui- l ton and sympathy of the best women. It is hard to believe in his 54 years, as one looks into the bright, brown, of dark hair hardly touched with gray; and the tremendous nervous energy the vital. magnetic power of the man are rarely associated In our mind with the approach to threescore years.
 Before leaving MT. Tomlins ] of course asked his opinion of the Cali fornia voice, and he had many nice things to say concerning its beauty, which I here patriotically pass on.
 "The spontaneity and freshness of the California voice delighted and sur prised me on my visit here three years ago. he answered. There is much less self elf-eonsciousness here than in the East-that bugbear of music. Perhaps a newer civilization accounts for it."
 We thought our climate'- I be- gan.
 Climate has some effect doubtless" said MT. Tomlins. smiling, but lan- guage has more' Witness the gut
 turals of Germany. the nasals of | France, the lovely liquids of Italy and l still more Wales. Then the effect of