of his voice, that he learned this in his summer employment as a public
crier at the door of a show tent. He said he could not possibly have
endured the daily wear upon the voice in any other way. Voices are
heard among teamsters, foremen on the street, and auctioneers, that
conform to this and other principles perfectly. We may say that in such
cases the process of learning is unconscious. In the case of the
untaught student it was conscious, and was exactly what he would have
been instructed to do by a teacher. The point is that many cannot learn
by themselves, and our more unconscious doings are likely to become our
bad habits.

Just what this voice placement is can perhaps be observed simply by
sounding the letter "m," or giving an ordinary hum, as the mother sings
to the child. It is merely finding the natural, instinctive basal form
of the voice, and making all the vowels simply as variations of this
form. The hum is often practiced, with a soft pure quality, by singers.
It is varied by the sound of "ng," as in "rung" or "hung," and the
elemental sound of "l." The practice should always be varied, however,
by a fuller sounding of the rounder vowels, lest the voice become too
much confined or thinned. The speaker, like the singer, must find out
how, by a certain adjustment all along the line from the breathing
center to the point of issue of the breath at the front of the mouth,
he can easily maintain a constant hitting place, to serve as the hammer
head; one singing place for carrying the voice steadily through a
sustained passage; one place where, as it were, the tone is held in
check so it will not break through itself and go to pieces,--a "placing
of the voice," which is to be preserved in every sort of change or play
of tone, whether in one's own character or an assumed character; a
constant focus or a fixed center of resonance, a forming of tone along
the roof of the mouth and well forward in the head, the safeguard and,