In classic Athens the voice was trained for the purposes of both oratory and singing. A specially recognized profession was that of the vocal trainer or _phonascus_, whose duties embraced the vocal cultivation of both singers and public speakers. A well-developed system of voice culture was followed by these teachers, who superintended classes in the daily practice of systematic exercises. For the training of the speaking voice a pupil began his daily practice by repeating detached sentences at short intervals. From this he passed to the declamation of long phrases, beginning on the lowest notes of the voice, raising the pitch gradually until the highest notes were reached, and then again descending to the lowest range. The exercises in singing were very similar, although greater attention was paid to the sustaining of high notes. Owing to the immense size of the Greek open-air theatres, and to the masks that were always worn by the actors, volume and power of voice were of the utmost importance. The actors might justly be described as singers, as all their speeches were delivered in a style of vocal declamation not unlike our modern recitative. Very much the same methods of vocal cultivation were followed in ancient Rome, although much more attention was paid to oratory than to singing. There is no reason to believe that voice culture in Europe was influenced in any way by the classic systems of either Greece or Rome. III Vocal cultivation in Europe had an independent beginning. It may be that some of the musical traditions of the Hebrew Temple had been carried over into the earlier churches which were founded in Italy, as there is no doubt that the same traditions were adopted as the basis of the Eastern church ritual at Constantinople. Certain it is that prior to the reform of St. Ambrose much of the music of the early Roman church was highly ornamental in character. At any rate, with the founding of the choir school attached to the Pontifical chapel at Rome in the year 590 voice culture made a new start; it underwent a steady development, and continued to progress without interruption until it reached its fullest fruition in the Italian school of singing in the seventeenth century. The choir school at Rome was intended to serve as a model for the entire Western church; it supplied singers for the papal choir, which was established to illustrate the proper rendition of Gregorian music. At the beginning the course of instruction followed in the Roman choir school was extremely rudimentary, and so it continued for several centuries. The _maestro di cappella_ had as part of his duties the training of the singers’ voices. This was accomplished according to the purely instinctive system followed in the similar schools of the ancient temples. The students committed to memory the music as it was sung by the choir master; in the course of their constant repetition of the various musical numbers their voices