so there is no harm in proposing one for the Conservatoire. Foreign
conservatoires have been studied and they want to introduce some of
their features here. As a matter of fact, some of the foreign
conservatoires are housed in magnificent palaces and their curricula are
elaborated with a care worthy of admiration. Whether they turn out
better pupils than we do is an open question. It is beyond dispute,
however, that many young foreigners come to us for their education.

Some of the reformers are scandalized at the sight of a musician in
charge of a school where elocution is taught. They forget that a
musician may also be a man of letters--the present director combines
these qualifications--and that it is improbable that it will be
different in the future. The teachers of elocution have always been the
best that could be found. Although M. Faure is a musician, he has known
how to bring back the classes in tragedy to their original purpose. For
a time they tended towards an objectionable modernism, for they
substituted in their competitions modern prose for the classic verse.
And the study of the latter is very profitable.

Not only is there no harm in this union of elocution and music, but it
would be useful if singers and composers would take advantage of it to
familiarize themselves with the principles of diction, which, in my
opinion, are indispensable to both. Instead, they distrust melody.
Declamation is no longer wanted in operas, and the singers make the
works incomprehensible by not articulating the words. The composers tend
along the same lines, for they give no indication or direction of how
they want the words spoken. All this is regrettable and should be
reformed.

As you see, I object to the mania for reform and end by suggesting