The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-03-13
SPOKEN ENGLISH.
Boston Lays Claim to the Most Beau
tiful Voices.


Do the women of Boston have the most
pleasing voices in America? Is it only in
eastern Massachusetts that feminine
speech approaches perfection
The affirmative answer comes from the
woman who teaches spoken English at
Smith College, which is at Northampton,
far enough west in the state SO that it
cannot be suggested she is roofing for
home talent.
The,voice of Smith College is being heard
just now in an appeal for a 100000
endowment fund. Mrs Thomas Louden
of the faculty speaks up to say that all
college girls should have musical voices
and yet, alas, too few do.
There may be a girlish voice out in
Wisconsin, say, or Colorado that sounds
like music to your ears. In some locality
the old home town, perhaps-every
feminine sound may seem beautiful to you.
Imagine the outraged Kansas culture
when word reaches it's co-edueational
colleges that the girls out there tend to
nasality.
Boston's pretensons to being the Hub
of the universe are harmless enough. but
when women's voices are challcnged-al
that is different
| Probably the only community that viii
not protest against assumption Of voca
| superiority is New York city. Native
Manhattanese, and Brooklynese have few
rivals in unovely speech
| Such residents of the world metropolis
as come from somewhere, while admitting
| that New York women can scarcely con
tend for first honors in a vocal contest
are loath to yield the distinction to Bos
| ton femininity, preferring to pick run
ners-up elsewhere.
| By a speaking voice that is musica
| Mrs Louden means one that has pure
! tone supported by proper breath control.
| She holds that "a speaking voice can h
made and should be made as beautifully
| as singing voice, whether used CONVEX
| sationally or from a platform before {
large assemblage.'
| From her experience in training young
women to speak well Mrs Louden finds
| among girls from all parts of the country
| that those who live in and around Boston
have the most pleasing voices,
The girls from certain other parts o
New England and from Pennsylvania anc
the Middle West she says, may be sale
to have the most unmusical qualities o.
tone, especially as result of the bur
sound, and the fiat a. which, overflatted
leads to strong nasality.
There is the mistaken feeling among
many Americans, and in many American
schools, that the r is neglected unless
expressed by that hard, constructed
sound which comes from shutting the voice
into the throat by the tongue. No dis
tinction is made between a good r ant
bad r. The result is an unmusica
| throaty tone"
Mrs. Louden says the worst defects il
| the speaking voice are bur- which re
latcs to the 'r," nasaGty and indistinct
| ness
Among the women's colleges of thu
| country it is recognized that at Smith
great emphasis is placed on the speaking
voice According to Mrs Louden, 9TH
aim is to create standard of spokel
English so that no girl who goes out o
| college will lack a well-modulated voice
free from the defects of harshness, nasal
ity and throatiness that characterize S
much of the American speech. '-NeN
4 York Tribune