Welsh Journals

could be claimed for drawing and other forms of art and craft. It is important to meet objections so significant by thoughtful and sympathetic men. The real reply may best be implied in two incidents which happened in my own experience, one last year at Wembley and one last night in a Red Triangle Hut in a South Wales valley. Last year the War Office wished to test the acoustics of the Stadium, and sent out a wireless message asking any London Scout patrol who could to come and sing (or shout) on a given Saturday afternoon. A number (if I remember rightly) somewhere round about a thousand came. Leaflets were handed round and a counductor mounted a box, and with the help of a small band, conducted the lads through a hymn and the national anthem. They began horridly raggedly, but in a few moments they were singing with power, precision, and amaz- ingly disciplined unanimity. I was told that one staff officer turned to another in utter astonish- ment and exclaimed: In a minute and a half he has turned a rabble into an army" It was roughly true, and looked like a small miracle; and only music could have done it. The second incident (in the Pit-boys' Club Hut last night) showed a similar power. But the lads had no books, not even half-penny song-leaflets. (That is our fault, and I for one felt terribly guilty). Yet they sang, they listened. till you could hear a pin drop; they stamped out rhythms with their feet, and they laughed hilariously when they found they could do it like one man and end together to the tick. They made up tunes with me. The leader of the hut told me they are utterly unprovided otherwise with recrea- tion, and his musical efforts, unequipped and unsupported, only tell the same sad story as is everywhere by every means made apparent,-the story of a musically uneducated but simply re- sponsive and easily educable race-given the instructors and the facilities. IV. A SKETCH. It will, perhaps. serve the readers' purpose best if I end this month's article-which is an inadequate effort clearly to see and soberly to report the truth about this burning educational want-by sketching a possible happy state of things in a possible elementary school twenty years hence in any district. 1. What is the musical personnel of that for- tunate school? (a) The Head Teacher and his Musical Lieutenant, one of his permanent staff, are in command of the musical intake and output of the whole school, but four elder scholars sit with them on the school musical executive. Together they control the following:- (b) The big school choir, which consists, as a matter of course of 99 per cent. of the scholars and staff (with luck of 100 per cent) (c) The smaller school choirs of the more musically apt part-singers, chosen from the big choir by merit, and corresponding to the school "elevens" in games-form choirs or choirs A. B and C (perhaps totalling 20 per cent. of the whole school). (d) The school band of the 5 per cent. or so of every school, who possess natural quickness and happy aptitude for master- ing the difficulties of any given instru- ment. (e) A school melody club. 2. What is the musical equipment there? (a) A song book and hymnal in both nota- tions in every scholar's hand throughout their course. (b) A school musical issue of current melodies made by the school itself and performed by band and choir (multiplied in MS. by some form of multigraph). (c) A good wireless installation. (d) A good gramophone. (e) A set of instruments in custody of the Head for use of the school band, and music-stands. 3. What is the musical output there? The reply to this question is beyond me. But I rather think that however formidable the personnel and equipment look, the output is such that it makes not the slightest excess of demand upon the time or the energies of the staff or the school. Of one thing we may be sure. It will include at least one united musical act daily through which the esprit de corps of the whole school could find vital expression and nourish- ment. The rest of the reply to this crucial question must for want of space stand over for another article.. (To be Continued.) THE GRAMOPHONE. Gramophone companies are slow to give well made records of Welsh music; but December has brought us a number of excellent render- ings of classical pieces. The H.M.V. Company has a complete record of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, an excellent Chopin record by Pachmann, the exquisite Schumann Quintette, and songs well sung by Chaliapine and others. There are, also, some old and cheerful Christmas Carols. The Vocalian records of the month are not so interesting. They are mostly small pieces. Easilv the most charming are two records of the old Cries of London." This would be an admirable accompaniment to a school lesson on soda} life two centuries ago,