It is more than fifty years since Pierre Galin, professor of mathematics in the institute for deaf mutes at Bordeaux, published his _Exposition d'une nouvelle Methode pour l'Enseignement de la Musique_, and more than thirty since his distinguished disciple, Emile Cheve, demonstrated practically, in the military gymnasium at Lyons, the immeasurable superiority of that method; and yet such is the repugnance of teachers of music to any change in their routine that they have paid little or no attention to the work of Galin and his followers. The _Methode elementaire de la Musique vocale_, by M. and Mme. Emile Cheve, has never been translated into English. It was published in Paris by the authors in 1851--a work of over five hundred pages in royal octavo, and a most clear and exhaustive exposition of the method which they followed with such success. In proof of the superiority of that method, an account of M. Cheve's test-experiment at the military gymnasium at Lyons in 1843 will be interesting. The gymnasium was at that time under the direction of two officers of the French army, Captain d'Argy and Lieutenant Grenier. The facts are taken from their official report of the experiment. By order of Lieutenant-General Lascours the soldiers of the gymnasium were placed at the disposition of M. Cheve, that he might make a trial of his method. General Lascours further ordered that the officers in charge of the gymnasium should be present at every lesson, and report carefully the progress of the pupils and the final results of the course. The members of the class were taken at large from the twelfth, sixteenth and twenty-ninth regiments of the line, fifty from each. M. Cheve accepted all as they came, and agreed formally to bring eight-tenths of the class of one hundred and fifty in one year to the following results: (1) To understand the theory of music analytically; (2) To sing alone and without any instrument any piece of music within the compass of ordinary voices; (3) To write improvised airs from dictation. "Candor compels us to admit," says the report, "that nearly all of the soldiers showed the greatest repugnance to attending the course, and did so only because they were ordered to do so. Several months elapsed before this bad spirit could be conquered, and before the majority of them could be brought to practise the vocal exercises. Some even refused to try to sing, on the ground that they were old, that they had no voice, that they could not read, etc."