If music were a simple thing or had a specific goal, such as the development of a logical proposition, the task of the critic would be easier. But, as it is, he is dealing with a highly fluid and chaotic state of affairs when he is supposed to aid the common reader in assigning praise or blame to the performance. One of the most striking faults of the work of the musical critic is his lack of words--lack of concepts which are discriminating and logically definable. We tolerate his splashing of his personal likes or dislikes as if he were competent to boil down our feelings of the situation into a fair assaying of praise or blame of the performance. One difficulty lies in the demand for writing in smart and emotional style. Among critics there are rare individuals who have a fine artistic insight and a balanced esthetic judgment in regard to what is good or bad in music. But we seldom see their names in the musical-review columns. Phonophotographic recordings reveal art principles which had not been discovered in the musical world through hearing, and yet functioned very largely. They enable the critic to use scientific language in the description of achievement and assign praise or blame on the basis of identifiable and describable grounds. We can now photograph the sound waves of a performance at any distance from the source of sound and convert this into an analyzable performance score. As a whole, this principle cannot be available to the musical critic who must render an immediate opinion. But we have a right to expect that he should have a scientific knowledge of the types of facts which are revealed in such objective records. He is living in a new musical era in which the qualifications for the critic are as new as they are for the artistic and scientific orientation of teacher and performer. _The public._ I can recall the time when the possession of a piano and piano lessons for the darling girl represented almost the sole ambition of the mothers in our state aside from the spontaneous and untutored self-expression in song. The public demand has changed. Instruments have changed. Methods of teaching have changed. Understanding of the art has increased. Cosmopolitan tastes have spread. Knowledge of the science of music has become aligned with knowledge in other sciences. The public rapidly learns to demand all these things and take the right for granted. The ambition of the mother, the objective of the teacher, and the expression of the youth of fifty years ago are coming to be historical curiosities. The art of music in America is coming to a wholesome fruitage and is becoming associated with present-day academic learning. For the first time in history it reaches out into the remotest corners of the land and many of the technical aspects of the art and new concepts of the musical medium are fast becoming common-sense knowledge and therefore add in the just awarding of praise or blame. THOUGHT REVIEW