THE AMATEUR CHOIR TEACHER.
By the Hon. VICTORIA GROSVENOR.
n a former article we made some suggestions as to the possibility of improving a moderate gift for music with the view of learning to play the organ and qualifying for the noblest of service, that of leading God’s praise in His church.
We propose now to take up the subject of training choirs for the same excellent service, on the understanding that the future teacher has taken the advice already given as to her own musical improvement. Personal fitness for this branch of instruction is most necessary; as if once the taught discover they know anything of which the teacher has not more perfect knowledge, that teacher’s task will be a hard one. Therefore, there should be familiar acquaintance with every description of musical notation. Alto and tenor clefs should be well understood to be clearly explained when met with. On this subject we should like to recommend the careful study of “A Short Treatise on the Stave,” by the late Dr. John Hullah, published by Parker, where the whole matter is admirably set forth and illustrated on its own technical grounds. The often-heard, but somewhat slipshod explanation, “Oh! you must read a note higher or a note lower,” which leaves the puzzled learner very much where he was before, will thus be avoided. Even supposing the alto and tenor clefs are never met with, the study will repay the intending teacher by opening her mind and giving clearness to her musical ideas.
It will be seen, by what has been said, that we consider our amateur teacher’s first qualification should be thorough knowledge of her subject. The second should decidedly be untiring patience, which will bear with stupidity, carelessness, want of zeal, deficient ear, bad pronunciation, and all the thousand and one difficulties which beset choirs. These consist generally of volunteers who join with but little idea of giving of their best to God, and an impatient teacher would soon find herself in the lonely position of the last player in Haydn’s “Good-bye” symphony.
We would next place hopefulness in the teacher’s catalogue of moral furniture. The learners will soon find out if they are being taught without hope of their improvement; listless work will be the result, and the shy, anxious members will give it up in despair. The power of encouraging effort, of detecting and commending the slightest sign of improvement, of persuading the members mentioned above that the work is within their grasp, if persevered in, is most necessary, and a kindly sunny disposition ever ready to look at the brightest side is simply invaluable.
Next we should place regularity and perseverance. Without these the teacher can do nothing. If she works in the best spirit she will feel that, like David, she cannot offer to God of that which doth cost her nothing, and she will be ready to forego little pleasures in order that the practice may not be interfered with, or the evening of the week changed. This last is a most important point; as the lives of working people, from whose ranks most members of choirs are recruited, do not adapt themselves to change, they seldom receive in its integrity a hasty message sent round to put off, and of all things, a walk for nothing after a day’s work is to be avoided. Of course rules must be elastic and not unbending as iron, but experience shows that the above advice is really needful. Regularity in the teacher is sure to be imitated by the learners, and steady work must tell in the end.
The next point should be firmness tempered with wisdom. The teacher must be supreme, or no choir will prosper. Infallible she cannot be while here below; but even so, one will must rule or anarchy will be the result. Twenty (or whatever number may compose the choir) views of doing the same thing cannot conduce to harmony, moral or musical, and this fact must be impressed. At the same time there are local prejudices and fancies in most places, which a clever tactful teacher will soon discover and understand, so as to know when she had better give way.
Enough has been said to show that we do not consider the task of teaching a choir an easy one, nor will it always repay with success those who have given it much trouble. The teacher must sometimes find herself grappling with the effort of making the proverbial “sow’s ear into a silk purse.” She has impossible materials to weld, such as, e.g., excellent, but roaring basses, trebles possessing no high notes, tenors out of tune, and leaning to amalgamation with treble, altos none! What is she to do? Courage! Go on, do your best, teach, exhort, scold, coax, never lose hope, and if you get no credit, try not to mind. Man does not know, but God does, what work you do for His sake, only be sure that you are so doing it. If the music be really the unattainable “silk purse,” how much may be done in teaching the inharmonious little choir to phrase well, to throw out by judicious accent the sense of canticle and hymn, and so lead the congregation to think of the lesson it contains! How much zeal may be kindled by the teacher’s energy! How speedily the broad dialect peculiar to the place will disappear before a little good-natured chaff and imitation from one in whose lips it is seen, even by its votaries, to be ridiculous! How the ill-used letter “H” may be helped and restored with the advice of breathing over it.
The reader will not, perhaps, think us very encouraging; but it is obvious that where excellent voices are to be had, forming them into a choir only needs intelligence and a firm hand from one who is equal in knowledge to the task undertaken. We have, therefore, tried to suit our advice to the needs of the many, who must perforce work under difficulty, being obliged to take, not the materials they desire to have, but only the heterogeneous ones at hand.
A few practical suggestions and we have done! Do not attempt too much in public. Congregations are very critical. One piece of music badly done will be more noticed than several faultless ones. On the other hand, keep on learning some music above the power of the choir for improvement and interest. In cold weather, when possible, choose music which does not try the voices too much by giving them sustained high notes to sing.
Lastly, work according to the views of the vicar of the parish, who is responsible for everything in it; try to carry out in the best possible manner whatever form of musical worship he desires to have in his parish church. You may not be of the same opinion; but you will gain nothing but good by putting your own views in the background and thus learning to obey as well as to teach. And may we not hope that the loving Father will acknowledge such work, even if imperfect in its results, as done by His child to His Glory?
“SHE COULDN’T BOIL A POTATO;”
OR,
THE IGNORANT HOUSEKEEPER, AND HOW SHE ACQUIRED KNOWLEDGE.
By DORA HOPE.
Mrs. Wilson’s recovery was slow and tedious, even more trying to herself, perhaps, than to her nurses. She had always been particularly brisk and active, and had scorned to consider, or, as she said, “coddle,” herself in any way, and it was a great trial to her energetic, self-reliant nature to be waited on hand and foot, and watched over “like a baby.”
Ella, entirely unaccustomed as she was to illness of any sort, save her mother’s occasional attacks of asthma, thought the nurse was unnecessarily checking her aunt’s attempts to help herself, till Mrs. Mobberly explained to her what different treatment is necessary for different people, and how impossible it would be, with Mrs. Wilson’s active temperament, to prevent her from getting excited and over-tired if she once began to take any part in what was going on around her, although a little exertion might have been actually beneficial to one of a calmer and more indolent nature.
It seemed a long time before Mrs. Wilson was allowed any food more substantial than beef-tea, of which she wearied greatly in spite of the nurse’s many devices for varying it. She showed Ella how to alter the nature of it altogether by making it with half the quantity of mutton, or veal, instead of entirely beef; or with all three together. This not only made a pleasant change, but the doctor told them it was often found more easily digestible than when made of beef alone. Then again, both flavour and consistency were varied by adding cream, or an egg well beaten up, or thickening with corn flour, tapioca, wheaten flour, or rice, while at other times it was served clear, without either flavouring or thickening, or in the form of a jelly turned out of a tiny mould not larger than a teacup.
Gradually, however, Mrs. Wilson began to take more solid food, and then Ella’s great difficulties began. By the end of her first week’s experience of providing real meals for her aunt, she wrote to her mother that she had come to the conclusion that it was quite impossible to arrange dishes suitable in every respect for a sick room.
“Do pity the sorrows of a poor young housekeeper,” she wrote, “with three people to please, the doctor, the nurse, and the patient, and they all want something different. First comes the doctor, and tells me I must now devote my attention to making the dishes as nourishing as possible, as it is time aunt was picking up her strength again; so I crowd in all the strengthening things I can think of, and flatter myself I have made a mixture strong enough to restore the weakest invalid; and the consequence is that next day nurse tells me she has been up all night with her patient, whose supper was too concentrated to digest. Next time, inspired by nurse’s tale of sufferings, I make the simplest dish imaginable, which could not disagree with a baby, and it comes down almost untouched, with a sarcastic remark from Aunt Mary that when she is well she does not mind how plain her food is, but that in her present state of health she needs something to tempt the appetite a little. And yet——but I will draw a veil over the doctor’s reproaches when I ventured to make her a spicy little dish.”
But on the whole, in spite of her poor opinion of her own performances, Ella managed to supply the needs of the sick-room very satisfactorily; and she was much comforted on hearing from her mother that even the most experienced housekeepers find it a hard task to tempt the capricious appetite of an invalid, especially when it is necessary also that the food should be very nourishing, and at the same time so light as not to overtax the most feeble digestion, Mrs. Hastings sent her daughter a list of suggestions for little dishes for the sick-room, and added, at the close of her letter—
“At any rate, my child, if your task is difficult, as I know it must be, it is also satisfactory, for you can watch your patient each day able to take a little more nourishment, or a little more substantial food than the day before. You are saved the terribly sad duty of vainly trying to tempt an appetite which daily gets a little poorer, or of watching a dear one getting each day a little weaker, proving only too clearly that all your efforts are in vain.”
Happily Mrs. Wilson liked oysters, and, though she soon tired of them, as of everything else, they formed the basis of a number of tempting little dishes. The favourite of these, a suggestion of the doctor’s, was called “Angels on Horseback.” Ella was very anxious to know what the ridiculous name meant, but could get no information from the doctor, who said he had often wondered himself, but all he knew was that it was a favourite dish with invalids, and that was the name it had always gone by. Each oyster was taken from the shell, and the beard cut off, and was then rolled up in a very thin slice of bacon, tied round with cotton, and fried. Usually three of these little rolls were enough for a dish.
At first Ella’s generous nature led her into the mistake of sending up too large quantities of everything for the patient, but she soon learnt that a dish which would tempt an invalid if offered in small quantities, would be pushed aside in disgust if large and substantial-looking.
Next to “Angels on Horseback,” the favourite dishes were scalloped or stewed oysters; while for a little additional nourishment between meals, the nurse would often suggest a “Prairie Oyster.” This exceedingly simple dish is not an oyster at all, but merely the raw yolk of an egg, served like an oyster on a small shell, with the smallest possible sprinkling of salt and pepper over it. The white must be very carefully strained off, so as to preserve the yolk unbroken, and it can then be slipped into the mouth and swallowed without any trouble to the patient.
Two other favourite dishes which the cook was particularly clever in making were jellied veal and faggots. For the former a small knuckle of veal was boiled till the meat slipped easily off the bones, which were then taken out. The meat was cut into very small pieces, and pepper, salt, mace, and thyme added to taste, with a small shalot chopped very fine. This was all put back into the liquor, and boiled again till it was thick, and then turned into a mould. When cold it formed a stiff jelly. Ella always found the flavouring a difficulty, for Mrs. Wilson’s taste as an invalid was of course very different from what it was when in health, and her digestion was very easily upset; but the cook obstinately declared that she knew her mistress’s tastes better than Ella, and in spite of all orders persisted in putting in flavouring according to her own fancy; so that many dishes which might have been simple and nourishing enough to be frequently asked for, had to be altogether prohibited, as being too spicy for the invalid’s delicate digestion.
For the faggots, a rump steak was cut into thin strips of about three inches by two, and on these was spread a little butter, with pepper, salt, and the smallest atom of minced shalot, or sometimes a few herbs. The strips were then rolled up, tied with string, and fried in butter or clarified dripping, and served up in gravy.
Then there were the different kinds of panada, made of slices of chicken or game cut off the bones, and scraped and pounded, and gently simmered in milk; not to mention the numberless ways of cooking eggs, buttered, scrambled, poached, and boiled, besides omelettes, custards, and milk puddings of all descriptions.
At last, Mrs. Wilson began to show signs of real improvement, and as her strength returned she was allowed to spend part of every day on her comfortable, old-fashioned sofa, while a few visitors were admitted to see her. The nurse kept a very watchful eye over these visitors, and after their departure sometimes expressed herself in very strong language to Ella, saying that, “They ought to know better than to tire out an invalid with stopping such a long time, and as for some of them, why, they don’t never seem to care how high they send Mrs. Wilson’s temperature up, with their worriting talk, and exciting the poor creature so.”
The nurse would have soon taken the matter into her own hands, and requested the visitors to retire when her patient began to look tired, but that Mrs. Wilson preferred Ella’s attendance in the room to that of the nurse when visitors came, and she was not sufficiently experienced to know when her aunt was beginning to get tired. The nurse hit upon a plan, at last, which afforded Ella a good deal of secret amusement. Mrs. Wilson’s spectacle-case was always placed on a little table by the side of her sofa, and the nurse arranged that, whenever she began to feel a little tired, and wished to be relieved of her visitors, she should take up this spectacle-case and lay it beside her on the sofa, which should be the signal for Ella, or the nurse, to suggest to the caller that Mrs. Wilson had talked as much as was good for her.
Every morning Ella had to bring an account of all the pets to her aunt, and under her searching questions revealed an amount of ignorance that quite appalled the old lady.
“You should not feed the ducks and hens together,” she said, one day, in answer to a remark of Ella’s. “Of course, the ducks eat more than their share, with their great flat bills. Where are your brains, child?”
Ella had a good deal of trouble with the fowls’ food at first. Their morning meal was soft food, consisting of “sharps” (the outer part of wheat, which is separated in grinding the corn for white flour) and barley meal, mixed in equal parts, and added to any kitchen scraps there might be. This was wetted with boiling water, and should have been made into a stiff, dryish paste—a point Mrs. Wilson had been most particular about. The cook, however, objected to any extra trouble; as it was much easier to pour in water enough at once to make the mixture wet and sloppy, she always did so; while, as for the kettle really boiling—well, that was only one of her mistress’s many fads.
Then there was the Indian meal, which ought not to have been used, except in the cold weather, and then only occasionally mixed with the other meal, but this had all been used up, and no fresh had been ordered, so the fowls had been fed on Indian meal alone, till that, too, was finished.
Again, with her liberal ideas, Ella gave them far more food than they could eat, and the wet, sour mess lay about all day; so that it was not at all to be wondered at that the fowls drooped, seemed out of order, and did not lay their proper quantity of eggs, and Ella, afraid of exciting her aunt by telling her they were ailing, only increased the evil by increasing the quantity of food.
This state of things had lasted some time, when the nurse took pity on Ella’s difficulties, and told her it would do her aunt no harm to be asked for advice about the fowls; so, to Ella’s great relief, they talked the matter over together, and a change was instituted in the feeding. Fresh meal of all kinds was ordered, and Ella had a practical lessons in mixing it.
Mrs. Wilson had all the materials brought into her room, and directed the process, while Ella, arrayed in a large apron, and with her sleeves turned up carefully, followed her instructions.
Some potato peelings and kitchen scraps had previously been boiled together till they were quite soft, and now Ella cut these up small, with an old knife, and then mixed the meal in equal parts, while waiting for the kettle to boil.
As soon as it boiled, the scraps were mixed in with the dry flour, and Ella, seizing the big wooden spoon, began to stir vigorously, while the nurse poured in the boiling water.
“Enough water,” Mrs. Wilson cried, in spite of the incredulity of the two operators, who had intended to put in twice as much. “Don’t stop beating it up, child,” and Ella continued till she was hot and breathless.
“Now take up a handful and squeeze it.”
Ella did so, and it fell from her hand a stiff lump, leaving her palm quite clean.
“That is quite right,” said Mrs. Wilson, encouragingly, after slowly arranging her gold spectacles, and peering at the mass in the basin. “See that it is always stiff like that; and never give them more than they will run after when you throw it for them. If you find any is left, do not give them so much next time. At night give them each as much grain as you can take up in your hand, but no more. You may give the ducks a little more, but stop at once when their hunger is not keen. Now go and feed them, child; I am tired.”
Under this treatment the fowls soon revived, and Ella was happy about them again, at any rate till she discovered that she had made other mistakes. She found the eggs she got now were much better and richer than those bought in shops, or even than those she got when the fowls were being carelessly fed, and that in consequence fewer of them were necessary in cooking.
One day, before she had began to take solid food, to the great delight of her nurses, Mrs. Wilson declared she was hungry, and had taken a fancy for a boiled egg. There were not many eggs from the hens now, but the ducks laid regularly; so Ella picked out a fine large duck egg, and carried in the prettily arranged tray herself; but what was her disappointment when, on breaking the shell, the egg was found not to be fresh. Her aunt pushed the tray away in disgust, the sight of the bad egg had quite turned off her appetite, and she refused to eat anything at all.
The nurse was very much vexed, and Ella herself was greatly distressed, and went off with the tray, more convinced than ever that housekeeping was not her vocation, and that she never would succeed in it.
The next time she was alone in the sick-room her aunt told her that she was evidently very careless about the eggs, and must begin to manage them differently. To begin with, she must use up all in the house as quickly as possible for cooking, and every fresh one that came in must be dated with lead pencil, and placed in order, with the large end downward, in a board pierced with round holes for the purpose, and which was kept in the cool larder. They were to be used in the order in which they were brought in, and, Mrs. Wilson added, severely, she hoped they would not soon disgrace themselves again by serving up a musty egg.
At the beginning of January, Mrs. Wilson directed Ella to bring a certain note-book and the writing materials.
“Now,” she began, as soon as Ella was ready, “you will find a list, at the beginning, of all subscriptions that are due. I want you to write to all the people, and enclose the amounts. I will write cheques for the large sums, but for the others you must get postal orders. Make a list of all you will want, and then you can get them when you go out.”
“But they have not applied for the subscriptions yet, auntie. I have brought you every application that has come. Would it not be better to leave them till they are asked for?”
But this did not suit Aunt Mary’s views at all. She pointed out to Ella that she kept a note herself of the date when her subscriptions were due, and therefore knew the time as well as the recipients; and so she did not see the good of making the charities expend a penny postage, in addition to the cost of paper and envelope and clerk’s salary, in merely reminding her of the fact.
“And be sure,” she continued, “that you put a stamped envelope in with each subscription. I want them to get the benefit of the whole amount, without having to spend part of it in reminding and thanking me.”
“There is another notice under the ‘January’ heading, auntie, about paying the dog tax. Ought that to be attended to?”
“Oh, yes, to be sure. Now you see the good of keeping a memorandum book, for I had quite forgotten that January was the month for renewing the licence. That will be seven and sixpence. Two dogs, did you say? Dear, dear, child, how ignorant you are, to be sure! Don’t you know that dogs are not taxed till they are six months old, and the puppy is not nearly that yet?”
Ella looked rather crestfallen at this rebuke, which her aunt perceiving, hastened to comfort her by saying—
“Well, it can’t be helped. You are a good girl, and do your best, my dear; but things were different when I was young, and girls were expected to know all the ways of a house. Ah, yes! girls were very useful, in the old days, when I was young.”
(To be continued.)