where are we to find suitable singing-professors, and who is to pay them
a sufficient salary? Therefore, away with this erroneous instruction of
children in singing! away with this abortion of philanthropy and the
musical folly of this extravagant age! Can such a premature, unrefined,
faulty screaming of children, or croaking in their throats, without
artistic cultivation and guidance, compensate for the later inevitable
hoarseness and loss of voice, and for the destruction of the organs of
singing?

The tenors who belong to these singing societies and institutions force
out and sacrifice their uncultured voices, and scream with throat,
palate, and nasal tones, in the execution of four-part songs by this or
that famous composer, which are far from beautiful, and which serve only
to ruin the voice. Who was the lady who sang the solo in yonder singing
academy? That girl, a year ago, had a fresh, beautiful, sonorous voice;
but, although she is only twenty years old, it already begins to fail
her, and she screws and forces it, by the help of the chest-tones, up to
the two-lined _a_, without any thing having ever been done for the
adjustment of the voice-registers and for the use of the head-tones, and
without proper direction from a competent superintendent. Instead of
this, he was continually exclaiming: "Loud! forcibly! _con
espressione!_"

While even the street boys in Italy sing clearly, and often with great
ability, their national songs, so well suited to the voice, and in their
most beautiful language, our northern voices, which are obliged to
contend with the great difficulties of the German language, are
sacrificed in the most cold-blooded and self-satisfied manner in the
schools and singing societies, while all artistic preparation, by which
alone the voice may be preserved and cultivated, is neglected.