Even on the earliest singers of the church a solution of the vocal problem was imposed. These singers had to perform daily in large cathedrals and churches; they had to sing their music in time and in tune. Some measure of vocal cultivation was of necessity involved in their training. We are, fortunately, not left in ignorance of the methods applied in vocal training in the centuries which preceded the rise of solo singing. Many references to this subject found in the writings of early musical historians have been gathered together by H. F. Mannstein in his _Geschichte, Geist, und Ausübung des Gesanges von Gregor dem Grossen bis auf unsere Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1845). Fétis also contains many passages which throw valuable light on the subject It is true that the subject has been considered rather obscure, owing to the fact that students have looked for something not to be found, that is, for rules bearing on the mechanical management of the vocal organs. In order to understand this subject fully the modern conception of voice culture must first be briefly considered. Modern methods of voice culture are based upon the doctrine that the vocal organs must be consciously guided by the singer in the correct performance of their functions. The idea is that the voice must be led to adopt the correct manner of action by direct attention to its mechanical processes. According to the present conception, the singer must see to it that his vocal cords act in a certain way; that his breath is controlled at the proper point; that the tones have the correct origin and receive the influence of resonance in the correct manner. Even back of this conception lies a belief in the helplessness of the vocal organs to hit upon the proper mode of acting without the conscious direction of the singer. The singer must impose a certain manner of operating on the voice and carefully supervise all the processes of tone production. This is the scientific view of voice culture; until quite recently it was almost universally held. It is almost incredible that this view is thoroughly modern and that its origin cannot be traced further back than the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855. Not until 1883 did the scientific view of vocal cultivation find definite expression in the writings of any authority on the voice; in that year Browne and Behnke, in their book entitled ‘Voice, Song, and Speech,’ stated the scientific doctrine in plain terms, and asserted that the voice cannot be controlled in any other way than by attention to the mechanical processes of the vocal organs. For many years thereafter this doctrine went unchallenged, and methods of voice culture treated as the most important materials of instruction the means they embodied for enabling students of singing to acquire direct conscious control over their vocal organs.