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6                             FRANKLIN-SQUARE SONG COLLECTION.
Care of the Voice.—Mr. Eichberg, Supervisor of Music in the public schools of Boston, gives the following caution, which is well worth heeding. He says: The age cf most of the pupils in the high schools renders extreme caution in the treat­ment of their voices a duty and a sacred obligation. The common belief that boys' voices alone require especial care during the period of transition has led to much loss of voice and of health. Just as im­portant, if less striking, changes occur in the nature
and 'timbre' of the female voice. I am convinced that the voice of a girl from twelve to seventeen years of age requires all the more careful manage­ment from the very fact that, not suffering, like a boy, from an almost absolute impossibility to sing, she is likely to over-exert herself, to the lasting in­jury of both health and voice. When teachers are better acquainted with these physiological facts, they will understand the necessity of not sacrificing such young—such temporarily " diseased " voices—to the
DO THEY THINK OF ME AT HOME?
J. E. Carpenter. Chas. W, Glover.
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desire of exhibiting and showing off their classes. Another frightful cause of injury proceeds from the desire of many female pupils always to sing the highest part—the first soprano. It is with them "Aut Ccesar, ant nullus." Periodical examination of the pupils' voices, by the teacher, has seemed to me the only safe course in order to remedy this evil. In Jenny Lind's younger days, it is related that she applied for instructions to Garcia, the great teacher of vocal music in Paris. He heard her
sing, and then told her her voice was gone, that she must not sing a note for a year, and return to him at the end of that time, and in the meantime im­prove her health. She faithfully complied with these directions, and came back to Garcia at the appointed time. Rest at a critical period, had re­stored her voice, to her own delight and to the gratification of her master. From that moment a grand career was open before her, which has made her name a "household word" in two continents.