It should start with a few simple exercises in voice production.
Excellent suggestions for these will be found in a little book called
_Class Singing for Schools_, with a preface by Sir Charles Stanford,
published by Stainer & Bell, also in the Board of Education Memorandum
on Music. A special point must be dwelt on. Children should never be
allowed to use the chest register. Their voices should be trained
downwards. In the singing of scales there should be a leap to, or a
start on, a note high enough to be out of the chest register--such as
the high E[b]. The descending scale should then be sung. Breathing
exercises should be taken at the beginning of the lesson. A good
exercise is to exhale on the sound 'sh'. The children will stand in easy
positions for this, the hands on the ribs, so that they can feel the
ribs expanding and contracting during inhalation and exhalation. The
shoulders should be kept down. The advantage in using the sound 'sh' is
that the teacher can thereby tell how long each child makes its breath
last.

When these exercises are finished, and a few scales and passages have
been sung, the class should sit down while the teacher speaks about the
new song to be sung. In schools where sight-singing is taken as part of
the regular curriculum it is not necessary to work at this in the song
class. In beginning a new song the chief thing is for the teacher to get
the class to seize the spirit of it. If difficult words occur, they may
be explained later, but it is absolutely essential that the children
shall get hold of some idea which they can express in singing.

Mr. W. Tomlins, who came over from New York in order to show some of his
methods for dealing with large classes, produced some admirable results.
He worked up the enthusiasm of his classes to such an extent that the