VALUE OF SINGING AS AN EXERCISE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9301, 7 March 1907, Page 2

VALUE OF SINGING AS AN EXERCISE.

We do not yet thoroughly appreciate j in this country the value of singing as a physical exercise. Recently (says Science Siftings) Surgeon-General Evatt pleaded strongly for the encouragement of singing both in tine army and. navy. As a doctor he bears witness to the value of singing in preparing the lungs fop the s|brain pufc upon the internal organs by physical training. He also spoke of its value as a recreation, and the immense advantage to be derived by the cultivation of good music atw^high-class songs, which would eleva.be, just as surely as low-class songb would be injurious to the mind and morals of any man. Dr Arthur Suiamieirville, Hib Majesty's Inspector of Music of the Board of Education, endorses this, and tells us that in Japan all youths of the fighting (doss are bred to singing and. music. It balances in the mind the physical training of the body, and, he adds, is a source of sfcrength., There can be no doubt that sine^ng is a most valuable exetedse for developing the chest in young men. Apart from the physical benefit to the individual singers, the British Medical Journal considers that the moral effect must be very great.