The answers were:
Forty correspondents have no knowledge.
Five think the voice is improved by the experiment.
Ten quote solitary instances where no harm has arisen.
Ten know of the experiment having been made, and consider it has caused no harm to the voice.
Eight mention results so variable as to admit of no conclusion.
Seventy-nine say the experiment causes certain injury, deterioration or ruin to the after voice, and of this number ten observe that they have suffered disastrous effects in their own person.
These answers were from English choirmasters, organists, music teachers, singers, etc. It will be noticed that only fifteen of those who give a positive opinion upon the subject think that boys can sing through the period of break safely; while seventy-nine are positive that the result is unsafe. The other replies are vague.
It must be remembered that many of the opinions are those of instructors in cathedral schools, where one or two rehearsals and a daily church service means a great deal of singing; while other answers come from choirmasters who require of their boys equally hard work, though less in quantity.
Every individual voice must be judged by itself, if such demands as choir-singing are made upon it; and, while there are some cases, as every choirmaster will probably agree, where no perceptible injury results from singing during the change, the rule is that even when possible, it is very unsafe.