"A reporter of 'The San Francisco Chronicle,' who recently visited the industrial school, was very much impressed by what he saw and learned there concerning not only the taming, but the reforming and refining influence of a 'concord of sweet sounds.' Attached to the institution is a music-teacher, who has at all times in active training a number of boys, who perform on the various instruments that make up a brass band. This teacher, who is an intelligent German, and to all appearances an able instructor, testifies to the wonderful efficacy of music in softening the rugged nature of the boys, who are sent to school usually because they are uncontrollable by their parents or guardians. He says he has noticed the singular fact, that boys whose aversion to learning was so great that they could not or would not acquire even a knowledge of their 'a, b, abs,' took hold with evident relish of the comparatively difficult study of theoretical music, and in a very short space of time mastered the notes sufficiently to be able to read a tolerably hard score or piece of music. This seemed to him like a phenomenal phase, and he can only account for it on the ground that a love of music is inherent in the average bad boy. He has usually in training a band of twenty pieces: but he says that this number he could easily augment at any time to two, three, or even four times as many; for he very rarely finds a boy that has not a taste for some musical instrument. The greatest trouble he has yet encountered in the formation of his bands is the fact, that, as soon as his pupils become really proficient, they are ready for a discharge for good conduct, the music possessing such an influence for good over them as to completely reform dispositions that would otherwise be incorrigibly bad. Since he has held the position of music-teacher at the institution, several boys have been discharged for good and promising conduct, who have turned their knowledge of music, acquired within the walls of the industrial school, to profitable account."