Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/165

TONIC SOL-FA.  on the scale they have only to be told that such a line of the staff is doh, and hence that the next two lines above are me and soh, and they are at home on the staff as they were on the modulator. The testimony of musicians and choirmasters confirms this. Dr. Stainer, for instance, says (in advocating the use of the method in schools): 'I find that those who have a talent for music soon master the Staff notation after they have learnt the Tonic Sol-fa, and become in time good musicians. It is therefore quite a mistake to suppose that by teaching the Tonic Sol-fa system you are discouraging the acquisition (the future acquisition) of Staff music, and so doing a damage to high art. It may be said, if the systems so complement one another, Why do you not teach both? But from the time that can be devoted to musical instruction in schools it is absurd to think of trying to teach two systems at once. That being so, then you must choose one, and your choice should be governed by the consideration of which is the simpler for young persons, and there cannot be a doubt which is the simpler.' This testimony is supported by a general consensus of practical teachers. The London School Board find that 'all the teachers prefer to teach by the Tonic Sol-fa method,' and have accordingly adopted it throughout their schools; and it now appears that of the children in English primary schools who are taught to sing by note at all, a very large proportion (some 80 per cent) learn on this plan. In far too many schools still, the children only learn tunes by memory, but the practicability of a real teaching of music has been proved, and there is now fair hope that ere long the mass of the population may learn to sing. The following figures, from a parliamentary return of the 'Number of Departments' in primary schools in which singing is taught (1880–1), is interesting. They tell a tale of lamentable deficiency, but show in what direction progress may be hoped for:—

Writing down a tune sung by a teacher has now become a familiar school exercise for English children, a thing once thought only possible to advanced musicians; and it has become common to see a choir two or three thousand strong singing in public, at first sight, an anthem or part-song fresh from the printer's hands. Such things were unknown not many years back. In the great spread of musical knowledge among the people this method has played a foremost part, and the teaching of the elements is far from being all that is done. Some of the best choral singing now to be heard in England is that of Tonic Sol-fa choirs. The music so printed includes not only an immense quantity of part-songs, madrigals, and class-pieces, but all or nearly all the music of the highest class fit for choral use—the oratorios of Handel, masses by Haydn and Mozart, cantatas of Bach, etc. One firm alone has printed, it is stated, more than 16,000 pages of music. Leading English music-publishers find it desirable to issue Tonic Sol-fa editions of choral works, as do the publishers of the most popular hymn-books. Of a Tonic Sol-fa edition of the 'Messiah,' in vocal score, 39,000 copies have been sold.

To the pushing forward of this great and beneficent work of spreading the love and knowledge of music, Mr. Curwen devoted his whole life, and seldom has a life been spent more nobly for the general good. He was a man of singularly generous nature, and in controversy, of which he naturally had much, he was remarkable for the perfect candour and good temper with which he met attack. If the worth of a man is to be measured by the amount of delight he is the means of giving to the world, few would be ranked higher than Mr. Curwen. His was a far-reaching work. Not only has it been, in England, the great moving force in helping on the revival of music as a popular enjoyment, but it has had a like effect in other great communities. We read of the forming of choral classes, in numbers unknown before, in New Zealand, Canada, Australia, India, the United States. Even from savage and semi-savage regions—Zululand or Madagascar—come accounts of choral concerts. When one thinks of what all this means, of the many hard-working people all over the world who have thus been taught, in a simple way, to enter into the enjoyment of the music of Handel or Mendelssohn, of the thousands of lives brightened by the possession of a new delight, one might write on the monument of this modest and unselfish worker the words of the Greek poet: 'The joys that he hath given to others who shall declare the tale thereof.'

Of the 'Galin-Chevé' method of teaching sight-reading, which is based, broadly speaking, on the same principle as the Tonic Sol-fa method, a notice is given under, in the Appendix. [ R. B. L. ]

TONIC SOL-FA COLLEGE, THE, is one of the few public institutions in England wholly devoted to promoting the knowledge of music. It was founded by Mr. Curwen (see preceding article) in 1869, in order to give stability and permanence to the Tonic Sol-fa system of teaching, and was definitely established in its present form in 1875 by incorporation under the Companies Act 1862. The College is chiefly an