The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-15


cooperation of the woman herself. Moth
ing could be done without that But If
she would promise TO follow my instruc-
tons and really wanted to rid herself of
such a voice, I could very easily train
her to speak in such a way that she
would not be recognizable by the tone
of her voice at the end of a few months.
l have taken worse cases than hers and
made them talk at the end of a certain
number OF lessons with refinement and
breeding.
If singing can be taught In a way that
changes almost entirely the quality OF the
natural voice, there is no reason in the
world why the same thing should not be
done with speech. l have taken women
whose RS buried like buzz saw and
succeeded in Kidding them almost entirely
of 1t. I say almost. because there have
been certain cases when all traces of that
Dreadful r would not go, try as l might
to get rid of il. All drawing, whiny,
twangy women can be taught to talk prop
erly, if they are willing to take the trouble
to follow instructions and devote some
time to correcting natural defects. The
most difficult thing is to convince a wo-
man that she does not talk as well-bred
women who speak good English should
She never hears her own crudities and
provincialisms of speech, and is naturally
not impressed with the necessity OF i'm
proving them.
Il began to teach women 10 use their
spe aking voices properly after l realized
now much more nece ssary that was than
the teaching Of singing is, and how much
less overcrowded the field of my work
is. have practically The monopoly of this
kind of teaching. 1 began it while 1 was
teaching singing in a fashionable school
mere. There was no great demand for
that, but was very much impressed by
the fearful accents of some of the West
eTn pupils. l spoke to the principal about
1t and she told me that the question of
improving the speech of many of her
scholars had often troubled her. She re-
ceived large sums for finishing them in
New York took them about to theaters
and the opera, and was expected to give
them a veneer of metropolitan life for the
large sums paid by wealthy parents in the
West She very truthfully said that she
never sent them home again carrying
along their same Western accents, with
out feeling that very important part of
their New York finishing had been neg
| lected.
Il told her 1 thought 1 could remedy
that defect, and she offered to pay me
| twice as much as l was making by try
| ing to teach how to sing a few girls who
had very little voice and were quite in
different to cultivating what they had. 1
started in, applied what principles used
! in teaching singing, and began to have
successful results in short time. The
| girls with a decided nasal twang had their
voices worked out of their noses, just as
| they would have been had they intended
to sing instead of talk. Whining girls were
! taught by exercises that l had used in
singing to speak with precision and
| promptness. The position of teacher to
correct their faults of speech gave me the
right to crucise their way of speaking,
and that was in itself a great incentive to
them to try to improve, chiefly because
their at ention was attracted for the first
time to their own peculiarities. That often
accomplished wonders.
IT found no defect that could not be
remedied by principles that l had used
always in singing. Some voices, of course,
were more agreeable than others. but it
would astonish you to learn how much
can be accomplished merely teaching
woman to use only certain volume of
voice In speaking instead of talking with
all her might and main, as most of them
do. Restraint in her tone and her manner
of using her voice need only be contrasted
with the effect created by an unframed
abrupt and uncontrolled use Of the voice
| each as this nuisance behind us is now
indulging in, to show how much can be
done in the way of improvement by very
little work
81 have since had all sorts of pupils. 4
| had one Western heiress who was called
Birdie by her family and she pronounced
1t as If it were spelled with twenty RS
| have had actresses and one singer in
comic opera, who wanted to go to Eng
| land and had very wisely decided to rid
/ herself of her most Objectionable Western
isms of accent. 1 succeeded in importing
to both her and the heiress a very we'll
bred agreeable tone, which. like the best
kind of language and speech in all coun-
/ tries, was without accent of any kind.
| That is my effort in all the pupils l take.
! Over the whole English-speaking world,
! one manner of talking is In accord with
the usages of the best breeding. That is
without marked peculiarites of any kind
II is the manner of speech that try to
impart and have yet to see the woman
whose voice, however disagreeable in
| quality 1t might be, could not be very
much improved by instruction and study.
should like nothing better than to have
this woman behind me as a pupil just to
| show what my system VIII do"
The girl. says the New York Tribune
who has not hot weat her arms need not
| be discouraged. Dame Fashion has had
| her in mind and there are pretty styles
for her. The hot weather arm is that arm
which is Just plump enough and not too
| plump TO look well under thin sleeves. A
! year or two ago II was a shocking vulgar
| ity to appear on the street with sugges-
| ton of flesh showing through thin dress
| sleeve and every shop was filled with long
! seeved underwasts, white. pink,and blue
| to wear with different gowns, and no mat
ter what kind of an arm a girl had she
| tucked il away under these nice little
| long -sleeved waists. But there was more
warmth in them than the average woman
| thinks she can bear in her summer frocks
| and that fashion lasted exactly one sea-
| SON The next season every mother
| daughter blossomed out in thin sleeves
| and thin yoked gowns little thinner and
a little more sheer than she had ever worn
before, and she has not worn long
| underwaist since. That is with the ex
ception of the girl who hasn't the hot
| weather arm. and she sometimes Will
wear a long sleeve because she thinks it
| looks better But she can have her gowns
! made now in a style which will give the
! cool suggestion of bare flesh and still not
! make the arm look painfully thin The
! skin-tight sleeve is not the thing now.
| and the undersleeve fashion has brought
with It puffed sleeves What joy to the
| slender girl to have a pretty muslin gown
made with four or FIVE puffs going around
| the upper part of the sleeve, with a large
| one at the elbow. while the lower part is
! plain to the wrist. Peffs are rather sat
! lsfactory. They will iron well for one
thing, and then they do not distort a
| - a.u tf,NA L Ind