The Teaching of Singing in Primary Schools.

Otago Witness, Issue 1812, 13 August 1886, Page 28

The Teaching of Singing in Primary Schools.

At the fourth annual meeting of the North Canterbury Educational Institute held at Christchurch last March, Professor Cook (of the University of New Zealand) gave an address on the above subject to a crowded meeting : the address was published as a supplement to " The New Zealand Schoolmaster" of March 15th, and we have had the good fortune to have this excellent pamphlet brought to our notice ; it is to be hoped that more copies are to be obtained from the publishers (Messrs Whitcombe and lombs, Cashel street, Christchurch), as we should be glad to see a copy in the hands of everyone who takes an interest in education 'in our own province of Otago. The following resume of one part of the pamphlet will we trust, be of great interest to many of our readers : —

Singing is supposed to .be taught in all our primary schools ; it is set clown as an " additional subject, 'for which marks may be given by the school inspector, and the requirements of each standard are duly set out in the syllabus • the gaming of marks is at present the only encouragement held out for teaching singing By the regulations made under the Education Act, every candidate for the certificate P which must be obtained before anyone can obtain employment as a teacher at all] is actually required to pass an examination in vocal music ' of such a character as to prove his fitness to impart inmstruction m these subjects, as defined by the regulations for standards and inspection ' Now, we cannot but know that musical skill does not, and cannot have much to do with the appointment of either school inspectors or schoolmasters. Professor Cook claims that he is tolerably wel acquainted with the musical capabilities of Christchurch, and'^neighbourhood, and has no hesitation in saying that if the resolutions just quoted were carried out with strictness, the certificates granted in that

district would have been few and far between. Some schoolmasters no doubt there are who are quite qualified to teach singing in their schools, but such men constitute but a small minority.

If anyone then were to judge merely by the syllabus issued by the Education department, he might well be deluded into the belief that though singing occupied no very exalted place in the curriculum, still New Zealand was not lagging very far behind the age in the attention bestowed upon- this most truly humanising subject. For instance, we should not be doing badly if (as the syllabus requires) the children in the fourth standard really could and did sing in fairly good tune and style the melody of an exercise in three parts, while the elder children sang the other parts; and we should not be doing badly if the children of the fifth and sixth standards really could and did • read more difficult exercises in tune and time with strict attention to expression marks.' In other words, if in addition to being taught to use their voices nicely the children also learned to read simple exercises in parts at sight, a good solid foundation of musical knowledge would be laid — not very extensive, perhaps, but really good as far as it went, and capable of indefinite increase by practice. These "paper" regulations, forming part of the syllabus, are all very well in theory, but practically they have become a dead letter. A school inspector reports that singing is not taught ; the master pleads in defence that the other compulsory subjects occupy the whole of the school hours, and there the matter virtually ends. Perhaps the inspector reports that what singing is taught is not being well taught ; but then arises the question as to the value of the inspector's opinion upon such a matter. Is he an expert in music himself ? It may be so by chance, but judging by what has already been quoted, the musical capability of an inspector cannot be relied upon. From these facts Professor Cook deduces that, notwithstanding the syllabus, what we are doing in the way of teaching singing in the primary .schools amounts to almost nothing, and further, that so long as we expect teachers, who already have to teach all the other subjects, to undertake, in addition, the proper teaching of singing, worth being called " singing " at all, matters cannot and will not improve. The requirement of the regulations cited above is an altogether unreasonable one. At the present time knowledge of music combined with sufficient skill to teach singing well, even to children, is a specialty. But even if a schoolmaster does happen to be a musical specialist of the degree requisite, he has quite enough to do to get through the other stipulated subjects ; if he is not a musical specialist it would be absurd to require him to attain the extensive and exact knowledge of music necessary for him to teach singing. The fact that teaching singing even to children is a specialty is recognised when secondary schools are dealt with; if singing is taught at all at our high schools it is taught by a professional teacher, who has made music the specialstudyof his life, and he is supposed to have been thoroughly taught how to teach. Is it then reasonable to expeot from a school teacher in a primary school a specialty that we never dream of expecting in the least degree from the more highly educated masters of the High Schools ? Think of what a teacher of singing must be able to do. Without any instrument but a tuning-fork to help him, he must be easily able to teach children to sing intervals and to strike their notes fearlessly without external aid of any kind, and in this respect the teacher must be able to give examples with his own unaided voice; to do this simple thing only, a teacher must have that confidence in himself which is the result of long practice and conscious ability alone. He must also be able to detect any mistake in intervals in a moment, and to correct it himself with certainty ; his ear must quickly detect any singing out of tune ; he must act as a model in singing, able to show what to do and what to avoid (quite as important) ; in particular, he must pay great attention to the management of the breath and proper phrasing, and he must strive after clearness of enunciatiou on the part of his pupils, for there can be no good singing where these cardinal virtues are disregarded. It must be admitted then that to teach singing usefully and well is impossible if a master is only a little ahead of his pupils, and is only possiblo where a leader is thoroughly skilled and at home in his subject.

The preceding portion of the paper as to the first remedy for the present state of things is ably summed up by Professor Cook in the following words : — "However much the knowledge o£ music may spread amongst us, the kind of teaching I have in view will alway3 require specialists. Such a teacher as I have tried to depict to you is evidently a man who, though he has cultivated his talents, has had considerable natural gifts to begin with. I believe that nearly everybody can be taught to sing fairly, and that to read music (staff-notation) tolerably well is not by any means so difficult as is oifen imagined, that is, if it be taught on some rational plan ; but fair knowledge and tolerable reading will not do in a singing-master. In short, talent, musical talent, is no more common than any other talent." Professor Cook having demonstrated that singing must be taught in the primary schools mainly by specially trained teachers vi«iting .the schools, then goes on to show how such a system could be begun in Canterbury. His suggestions, put very shortly, are as follows : — For Christchurch and its neighbourhood a really competent man should b% employed at about £350 a-year ; only children above the second standard (averaging 10 years of age) would be admitted to his classes ; he would have at the three main schools in Christchurch respectively 340, 310, and 27o children under his immediate charge; he would make four classes in each school, and give each class two lessons a week of threequarters of an hour each ; he would have two days a week available for say three suburban schools, and on Saturday mornings he would train teachers for teaching the two lowest standards. A blackboard, a tuning fork, and at each school a sufficient number of songbooks for one class would be all the apparatus required. As to country schools, by means of a staff of four good singing masters, two having their head-quarters in Christchurch, a third in the north, and a fourth in the south of Canterbury, the great majority of the primary schools could be reached, and only a few very isolated schools left in the hands of their masters, who in such case 1 ) might be offered special inducements to qualify as singing teachers. The rest of Professor Cook's pamphlet consists of short reports of what is being done in Victoria and in Boston (U.S.A), and carefully considers what is the best method of teaching. The sol-fa system is very justly treated, although judgment is finally given in favor of the staff notation. It is our intention to notice this most interesting part of the pamphlet on a future occasion.