However, most of the folk-songs available to the music lover have not the stigma of ‘science’ attached to them. Nearly all that have been published in the last ten years show some care of editing, some concern that the tunes, if they be not exactly as they were in their habitat, shall be true to the spirit of the original. Some editions give the original unaccompanied form of the tunes, perhaps with interesting variants. Few, in fact, try to pull the wool over the reader’s eyes. Scientific or not, modern editions of folk-songs show a candor which the subject has long needed. Many folk-songs, like the modern German, approximate ‘art’ music in their musical basis and can be understood as they stand. That is, they have the prevailing scales and are sung with accompaniments in the accented harmony. But most folk-songs are not sung with accompaniment. And when the editors begin to supply accompaniments trouble ensues. For the songs have their own style and will not coalesce with a type of accompaniment made for another style. And editors, trained in the schools, cannot produce a new musical style at a moment’s notice. So the original melodies may be changed and adapted more nearly to a diatonic scale which will fit a ready-made accompaniment. Or the accompaniment may do its best to suit the modal or unusual style of the melodies. Or both sides may be forced to make concessions. It would be most satisfactory, if our ears could get used to it, to sing these more unusual folk-songs without accompaniment and not try the barbarous experiment of making the right foot fit the left shoe. But even when they are altered, these melodies retain much of their beauty, and one would much rather have them ‘edited’ than not have them at all.