Songs for Catholic Schools

Children, even in large numbers, and entirely ignorant of music, will easily acquire them. The method I would recommend for teaching them is the echo system. It is practised in the fol1owing manner: The teacher sings one phrase himself, then, with a tap or little stroke of a ruler, gives the signal that the children are to repeat immediately the phrase he has sung. If they make any mistake, the teacher will repeat the phrase until they learn it well. One phrase being learned, the next win be taken up, the teacher singing and the children following immediately at the signal as before, until phrases enough are learned to form a period. The teacher will go over the phrases already learned, and the children will repeat first two phrases at a time, and then four, until the whole period is learned. One period being learned, the others will follow, until the whole piece is sung correctly. To obtain good results from this method, the following rules must be carefully observed: 1. Strict discipline must be maintained among the scholars. 2. The person teaching must sing with a distinct, decided, and clean enunciation of both notes and words, bringing out more expressly those notes which the scholars; seem to have most difficulty in seizing with precision. 3. The children must be trained and compelled to sing always sotto-voce, until they have learned well the piece they are studying. 4. It is of the greatest importance that the scholars shall not begin to sing until the signal is given by a tap of the ruler, when they must begin immediately, and all together. The habit of singing very piano while learning has an excellent effect on children, who are so organized that it is with the greatest difficulty they can be induced to pass into the upper register, or the 'Voce di testa. If they are called upon to sing an ascending scale, they keep on as long as the lower range, the Voce di petto, and voce di mezzo will allow, but when they get up to the high notes they either stop, or else force the voice to a scream. To allow them to go on in this way would put them out of hreath, and might do them serious injury, ruiniug thcu voices perhaps forever.