BASSINI'S ART OF SINGING.- Edited by R. STORRS WILLIAMS. This famous system has an almost unequalled standing in the field of local instruction. It is a text-book of the highest degree of scientific thoroughness. Soprano or Mezzo-Soprano, complete, $3.00-abridged, $2.50; Tenor, $3.00; Baritone, $3.00, postpaid. EMERSON'S VOCAL METHOD FOR CONTRALTO, BARITONE, AND BASS. - By L. O. EMERSON. A recognized standard work for voice training. Concise, direct, and embracing the newest ideas. The method is unusually interesting, being free from monotonous studies. Boards. $1.50, postpaid. EMERSON'S VOCAL METHOD FOR SOPRANO OR MEZZO-SOPRANO.- By L. O. EMERSON. On the same general principles as the volume above, and equally thorough and progressive. Boards, $1.50, postpaid. RAND'S PRACTICAL METHOD OF SINGING.-By JOSEPHINE RAND. A remarkably thorough text-book for voice teachers and pupils, and highly recommended by the profession. Together with a large number of delightful exercises with accompaniment. Paper, $1.00; Cloth, $1.50, postpaid. PESTALOZZIAN MUSIC TEACHER.- An inductive class instructor in elementary music. Treats the subject thoroughly from every practical point of view. Cloth, $1.50, postpaid. HOW SHALL I TEACH.-Illustrating Dr. Lowell Mason's celebrated system of class instruction. Invaluable to teachers. Heavy paper, 38 cents, postpaid. Any music-book or musical composition published throughout the world can be procured of us at shortest notice and lowest cost. Oliver Ditson Co., 453-463 Washington Street, ..... .BOSTON... THE NEW YOST. MODEL No. 4. NO RIBBON, NO SHIFT-KEY. PERMANENT ALIGNMENT. GEORGE H. RICHTER & CO., 92 Franklin Street, Boston, Mass. EXPRESSION. LEWIS BAXTER MUNROE. ROFESSOR LEWIS BAXTER MUNROE, late PROFESSOR LEWIS Dean of the School of Oratory of Boston University, was born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1825. He early showed many of those traits of character which made him so remarkable a man and so successful a teacher. He was earnest, intuitive, helpful in an extraordinary degree, even as a child, with a conscientiousness and poise of judgment beyond his years. Although of a constitution delicate even to feebleness, subject from infancy to fevers and other dangerous ailments, he not only kept up with his class, but became an usher in the Charlestown public school he attended at the too early age of fourteen. The school committee took great interest in the clearheaded, patient, industrious boy teacher, and urged him to prepare for college. But a university course was not possible for him. Family circumstances and his own precarious health precluded all hope of it. The Committee did, however, devote the sum of $50.00 to carry him forward in an academic course after his graduation from the grammar school. With this money, together with what he had saved from his earnings as assistant teacher, he pursued his studies for a while at Castleton, Vt., but was soon obliged to take a country school, though still a mere lad, in order to support himself and assist his family. This was in Surry, N. H. It was a rough school, but he was getting it well in hand, and everything seemed to be going on smoothly, when he was dismissed for a strange reason. He had introduced exercises in the elementary sounds of the language, a shocking innovation, as it appeared to the committee, who bluntly informed him that they did not want their children taught to "bark like a dog or squeal like a pig," and gave him leave to retire. Some time afterward, in answer to an advertisement in the Boston "Courier," he appeared before the School Committee of Cambridge, of which Mr. Buckingham was chairman, and was selected from among a number of competitors to take charge of the North Cambridge School. The committee were so impressed in favor of the youthful applicant that they neglected to press him for an exact statement of his age. Rule and custom required that masters should not be younger than twentyone. Munroe was only nineteen. He had excellent success, and made many friends at North Cambridge, where he remained until the state of his health, which still continued delicate, compelled him to resign. For a while he kept a private school in Charlestown, but was finally obliged to retire even from that, and take a voyage for the recovery of his strength. This was in 1851. He went by sea to New Orleans, and from there sailed to Europe, returning to Charlestown after an absence of about a year. He now became tutor to three Spanish youths belonging to an to an influential family of Central America, with whom he again visited Europe in 1855. His influence over these impetuous and high-spirited young dons was something wonderful, and its permanence is attested by the enthusiastic and grateful affection with which they always continued to speak of him. In 1857 they entered into the mercantile pursuits of their family, and Mr. Munroe returned to America. He had already given much attention to vocal culture. His own voice was naturally full, rich, and melodious, - a voice of wonderful depth and power; and he had for years been perfecting it by careful training. He also believed that to this training he owed much of the health and strength which he now enjoyed. After his second return from Europe, he drifted about for a while, edited a weekly paper, lectured, and gave public readings; but his ultimate vocation was evident, and it was inevitable. He took first a few private pupils in vocal gymnastics and the art of reading, gave lectures on the subject to various institutes throughout the country, and opened a school of vocal culture, which grew by degrees, until, in 1873, it was reorganized as a department of the University of Boston. Such was the origin of the famous School of Oratory. Professor Munroe still remained its head, with the university title of dean, and was as much its life and soul as when the school was purely a private enterprise. It was, in fact, carried on by his own individual energy and means. In the work it did, it was eminently successful, and only the great expense attending it, and the favors shown to pupils who could not pay, prevented it from becoming a pecuniary success. Assistant teachers, professors, and lecturers were freely employed; and the dean's self-sacrificing endeavors to secure the ablest instruction and the best methods for his department, involved him in endless personal outlay. Well if this had been all. In a literal sense, Professor Munroe devoted his life to his work. In teaching, he not only imparted information; he gave spirit also; virtue went out of him. This is the secret of his power, of his success in teaching, and of the enthusiastic love and devotion with which he inspired his pupils. He was not merely an instructor; he was a moral and spiritual force. In his interval of public labor he did not rest. Even to his beautiful summer house in New Hampshire, which he loved so well, he carried his studies; and in making a voyage to Europe a year ago for recreation and recuperation after a severe premonitory illness, his chief object seemed really to be to obtain additional knowledge which would be useful in his school. In Paris, at a great expense of time and money and research, he obtained the unpublished manuscripts of the great French master of oratory and dramatic expression, François Delsarte, and afterwards spent his leisure in deciphering and translating the imperfect writings. This could not last always. Although, by exercise and training, he had, to use his own expression, "patched up" his constitution, so that, with his six-foot stature and noble proportions, he seemed a model of physical endowment, he was never robust, and the illness of last year, already alluded to, had left him shorn of his strength. He longed for rest, and went to his New Hampshire home in Dublin, a few weeks ago, determined to enjoy it as he never had done before. But already his end was near. After rowing one day on Monadnock lake, which his house on the wooded mountain brow overlooks, he took a sudden chill; and inward inflammation, great suffering for a period of two weeks, and a final end of all suffering were the result. He died on |