The male choirs of Norway have always played a leading rôle in the music life of the nation. The students', merchants', and artists' singing clubs at Christiania during the past seventy-five years, have had artistic as well as patriotic aims. Festivals, after the pattern of those held at Cincinnati, and Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts, have also contributed toward the development of national music. The most eminent choral leaders in Norway have been Johan D. Behrens, F.A. Reissinger, and O.A. Gröndahl. The Norwegian Musical Union has also been active in the development of tonal ideals. Its aim has been to provide chamber concerts of a high order. Grieg and Svendsen were its first conductors. They were succeded by Ole Olsen, who combined the talents of orchestral leader with those of composer, chorister, and band leader. For many years he directed the Second Brigade Band at Christiania with the rank of captain. Johan Selmer, also a composer, succeeded Olsen in the direction of the Musical Union; and Iver Holier, a composer of symphonies, orchestral suites, chamber music, and vocal scores, followed Selmer. Other orchestral leaders are Johan Hennum, Per Winge, and Johan Halvorsen, CHAPTER XIX THE WOMEN OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN No volume dealing with Scandinavian life would be complete without some tribute to the women of Norway and Sweden. They are magnificent specimens wherever you may find them--in the kitchen, the factory, the harvest field, the hospital, the schoolhouse, the drawing-room, or the palace. They are good mothers, good daughters, and good wives, and while their devotion to their sons, husbands, and fathers is not surpassed by their sisters in any land, they are at the same time independent, self-reliant, and progressive to a degree that offers a striking contrast to the statue of the representatives of their sex in other countries of Europe. They give their best talents, affections, and strength; they ask the same in return. There is no country, not even the United States, where women exercise a wider influence, both direct and indirect in the home, the school, the church, upon the platform, and in the press. There is no other country in which the professions, trades, and other occupations are so free to them, or in which their opportunities are utilized with greater zeal, ability, and success. They work side by side with men upon the farms, in the factories, in mercantile establishments, counting-houses, government offices, and in art, science, and literature, and are equally capable, although, as in other lands, their pay for the same labor and equal results is less.