Copyright, 1915, by THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc. [All Rights Reserved] THE VOICE AND VOCAL MUSIC INTRODUCTION All the Arts, being emanations from the superman, are of the highest significance to the human race therapeutically--the word being used in its broadest possible significance. They are curative, they do us good. There is happily no longer a ban put upon any one of them in the modern world, except by an occasional religious sect, and even those survivors of a prohibitory past are rapidly disappearing. Enough can scarcely be said of the value of the literature of song as it exists to-day. Whatever has been written or is yet to appear, is a natural growth, and should be recognized as welling up from the unsounded depths of the human mind, as something to be used for the benefit, here and now, of young and old, male and female, rich and poor, well and ill--as a fruit ‘for the healing of the nations.’ When performed under proper circumstances, music--and particularly song, because it is so individual--has a power for good that is amazing. But this is not generally recognized; only by poets and dreamers has it been stated. The words of such are accepted by the world at large as beautiful generalizations, having no immediate or personal significance, applicable to some realm of fancy, some Celtic fairyland, as impossible as an Oriental heaven, but not to the sombre facts of existence upon this earth--facts so discordant that none but a prophet could by any stretch of the imagination reconcile them with a life of harmony here. Personally I believe in the foresight of the prophets and poets, and hope that Science will ere long come forward to set the seal of authority upon their utterances. When this is done, song will be accorded the position that so justly belongs to it, and its place will not be an inferior one in the scheme of man’s development through savagery into civilization, and beyond. The seers spoke better than we know; they saw, and do see, through the veil of the present into the beyond, through the paradoxical Paradise of parable into the theoretical perfection in which the effort to attain practical results will be one of the chiefest of joys. Is it not wonderful to realize that music and song are so prominent in the utterances of these hitherto misunderstood soothsayers? _Truth_-sayers are they in sooth! There is a noble work to be done in the endeavor to bring about sensibly, systematically and scientifically, the realization of their visions as they pertain to music, and a recognition of the value of song and singing and the application of this beautiful and all but universal gift to the betterment of conditions both personal and social.