Societies like the Oratorio Society of New York, the Handel and Haydn of Boston, the Apollo Club of Chicago, and numerous similar ones in nearly every city are also composed of amateurs, but admission is obtained only after proof of good vocal material and ability to sing at sight has been given. This enables such organizations to perform with a high degree of artistic finish and to produce a number of large works every season. The male societies, such as glee clubs and _Deutsche Gesangvereine_, cultivate a lighter class of music, but they sometimes reach a high degree of vocal excellence and finish in diction and phrasing. They afford a welcome relief from work, business cares, and mental strain to many men who like to sing and who enjoy the weekly rehearsals and the social intercourse with congenial men which usually follows the drill. The women’s choruses are not as numerous nor as popular as the men’s, but seem to be growing more so every year. It is difficult to understand why male choral singing should have developed more quickly and more widely, as women are usually more interested in music than the average man. Perhaps there is a psychological reason for it! Choruses of children’s voices are among the most delightful manifestations in the realm of music when they are well trained. Our public schools throughout the country have the best possible machinery for their development, and wherever this is guided by a good musician and competent organizer the results are very beautiful. It is a great pity, therefore, that the start in the direction of choral singing given in the schools to hundreds of thousands of children every year should not be systematically followed up by providing municipal evening singing classes, either in the school buildings or in other suitable halls provided by the city. Such classes would tend enormously to uplift the young people who are just beginning life by giving them opportunity to meet their friends under clean and pleasant conditions, to enjoy the study of beautiful music and thereby to put into their lives something which will help to lift them above the purely material thoughts and commonplace existence which are so often the lot of the wage-earner. There remains only the consideration of the various kinds of professional choruses. Of these, the church choir is the most frequently met with. As a rule, it is little better than the average amateur chorus, the members receiving a nominal fee, chiefly in order to insure their regular attendance at rehearsals and services. But there are some notable exceptions in the case of wealthy congregations who spend whatever may be necessary to secure a highly gifted and thoroughly competent choir-master, good voices, and frequent rehearsals. In some cases there have been established richly endowed choir schools in which boys gifted with good voices receive not only musical training, but an excellent general education sufficient to prepare them for college.