have become great artists had they been rationally instructed. Misinformed or prejudiced critics have told us countless times that Wagner assigned the voice a secondary place in his works because he cared less for it than for the orchestra, and did not understand its nature and uses. The fact is that no one can read his essays, especially those on Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and on Actors and Vocalists, without being impressed with his unbounded admiration for the voice, and his practical knowledge of its highest functions and correct use. As a vocal teacher, Wagner has perhaps never had an equal. A few words from him regarding tone emission, breathing, or phrasing, have often sufficed to show to a singer that a passage which he had considered unsingable, was really the easiest thing in the world, if only the poetic sense were properly grasped and the breath economized. It is difficult to realize how much of their art and popularity the greatest dramatic singers of the period owe to Wagner's personal instruction. Materna, Malten, Brandt, Tichatschek, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Niemann, Vogl, Winkelmann, Betz, Scaria, Reichmann, and many others have had the benefit of his advice; and if Wagner could have carried out his plans of establishing a college of dramatic singing at Bayreuth--a plan which was frustrated by the lack of funds--the cause of dramatic art would have gained immeasurably. We speak with scornful contempt of the Viennese of a former generation, who allowed a rare genius like Schubert to starve; but posterity will look back with quite as great astonishment on the sluggishness of a generation which did not eagerly accept the offer of the greatest dramatic composer of all times, to instruct gratuitously a number of pupils in his own style and those of Gluck, Mozart, and Weber.