muscular effort;--a movement which had its origin in the belief that no man
ever learned to sing because he locally fixed or puckered his lips; because
he held down his tongue with a spatulum or a spoon; because he locally
lowered or raised his soft palate; because he consciously moved or locally
fixed his larynx; because he consciously, rigidly set or firmly pulled in
one direction or another, his breathing muscles; because he carried an
unnaturally high chest at the sacrifice of form, position and strength in
every other way; because he sang with a stick or a pencil or a cork in his
mouth; or because he did a hundred other unnatural things too foolish to
mention. No man ever learned or ever will learn to sing because of these
things. It is true he may have learned to sing in spite of them, which
shows that Nature is kind; but as compared to the whole, he is one in a
thousand.

"The New Movement" has come to stay. It will, of course, meet with bitter
opposition. Why not? The custom of many has been, and is, to condemn
without investigation; to condemn because it does not happen to be in the
line of their teaching and study. Someone has said, "He who condemns
without knowledge or investigation is dishonest."

"The New Movement" is simply a study of the conditions which allow the
phenomena of voice to occur naturally and automatically. The day will come,
when a right training of the voice will be recognized as a flexible,
artistic, physical training of the human body, and a consequent right use
of the voice, as a soulful expression of the emotional nature. Matter or
muscle will be taught to obey mind or will spontaneously. The thought
before the effort, or rather before the action, will be the controlling
influence, and vitalized emotional energy will be the true motor power of
the voice. The elocutionists and the physical culturists understand this
far better, as a rule, than the vocalists.