The nearest approach Americans make to the enthusiastic German _Maennerchor_ is in the college glee clubs. The dignity of their selections is not always up to that of the Teutonic chorus, but they develop a salutary fondness for color and shading, exaggerating both a little perhaps, yet aiming at the right warmth and variety withal. Even those elaborate paraphrases and circumlocutions of Mother Goose rhymes, to which they are so prone, show a striving after dramatic effect and richness of harmony, as well as a keen sense of wit and humor that are by no means incompatible with real value in music. Among their other good deeds must be counted the fostering of the musical ambitions of Arthur Foote, who was for two years the leader of the Glee Club of Harvard University. Though he has by no means been content to delve no deeper into music than glee-club depths, I think the training has been of value, and its peculiar character is patent in his works. He is especially fond of writing for men's voices, and is remarkably at home in their management, and he strives rather for color-masses than for separate individualities in the voices. Among his larger works for men's voices is an elaborate setting of Longfellow's poem, "The Skeleton in Armor," which is full of vigor and generally sturdy in treatment, especially in its descriptions of Viking war and seafaring. The storm-scenes, as in Mr. Foote's "Wreck of the Hesperus," seem faintly to suggest Wagnerian _Donner und Blitzen_, but in general Mr. Foote has resisted the universal tendency to copy the mannerisms so many take to be the real essence of the Bayreuthian. A pretty bit of fancy is the use of a spinning-wheel accompaniment to the love-song, although the spindle is nowhere suggested by the poem. Indeed, the spinning is treated as a characteristic motif for the Norseman's bride, somewhat as it is Senta's motif in "The Flying Dutchman." The chief fault with the "Skeleton" chorus is that it is always choric. There are no solos, and the different registers are never used separately for more than a bar or two, before the whole mass chimes in. Even the instrumental interludes are short, and the general effect must be rather undiversified, one of sympathy, too, for the unrested chorus. "The Wreck of the Hesperus" is an ambitious work, built on large lines, but hardly represents Mr. Foote at his best. It is for mixed voices, and is pitched in a most lugubrious key, being always either vociferous with panic or dismal with minor woe. A worse trouble yet is the attempt to make a short poem fit a long composition. The Procrustean operation strains even Longfellow sadly. This blemish is lacking in "The Farewell of Hiawatha," which is written for men's voices. Though it, too, is of a sad tone, its sombre hues are rich and varied as a tapestry. Its effects, though potent, seem more sincere and less labored. It is altogether noble.