It is of no use to give a list of common errors, because each part of the country has its own bad points of dialect. The choirmaster should take his standard of English from the best preacher and reader he has the chance to hear, and endeavour to conform his boys to it.
But localisms are not the only faults. Boys are very apt to clip their words in chanting, to omit the smaller parts of speech altogether, and to invent new and meaningless sounds of their own. The most familiar parts of the service need frequent and watchful rehearsal to prevent this tendency. Chanting, as a rule, is much too fast, and the eagerness of the boys must be restrained in this direction.
In those rare cases where pronunciation and elocutional phrasing reach a high pitch of excellence, the music of the service makes a double appeal to the heart. It bears not only the charm of sweet sounds, but the eloquence of noble words.
CHAPTER VII.
SINGING BY EAR AND BY NOTE.
Many choirmasters maintain that, considering the short musical life of the choir-boy, it is not worth while to teach him to sing by note. The quickness of boys' ears for music, they say, is astonishing, while their memories are equally good. Between the two faculties—ear and memory—we are told that all things necessary are supplied. The boys, it is said, don't like theory, and it saves time and patience not to have to teach it to them.
I am altogether at issue with this view. I believe theory can be made interesting to boys, especially if the Tonic Sol-fa system is used, and that if they are taught sight-singing the choirmaster saves himself a vast amount of trouble. The after musical doings of the boys should also be considered, and whether they become tenors and basses, or take to an instrument, the power to read music will be a happiness through their whole lives.