out the new key-note, and changing the application of the syllables accordingly, is absurd, for three several reasons :

First. It is asking him to do a thing which, as every singer knows, the ear is not capable of doing; namely, to change suddenly the impression of the key-note.

Secondly. It is defeating the very purpose of the modulation, which is to bring the ear gradually to the impression of a new key-note.

Thirdly. It is requiring of a mere beginner all the knowledge of the doctrine of progression which is attainable by a scientific musician, and a

LITTLE MORE BESIDES.

1. It requires that he should understand the scales, not only individually, but in their connection. This involves an acquaintance with them, as consisting, not of relative, but of absolute sounds; that is, an acquaintance with the whole system of scales in their development from one another upon the tetrachordal plan. But the difficulty of making this matter comprehensible to children is the very reason why we adopt the expedient of employing the movable names for the scales at the outset ; and when the pupils have gained this knowledge, there is no longer any necessity for employing the movable names at all.

2. It also requires that the pupil should be able say precisely at what point in a given modulation the one scale leaves off and the other begins. Now this, being contrary to the very nature of a modulation, it is utterly impossible that anybody should know, in the majority of cases. It will readily be understood, even by a person unacquainted with the science, that in every skilful modulation there are certain notes which are common to both the scales, and which cannot be assigned to one or other scale without destroying the impression of this common character, upon which the composer relies for producing an easy and natural transition. The very ambiguity of such sounds, by the suspense in which it keeps the ear for a time, heightens the pleasure which is felt when the ambiguity is cleared up by the final triumph of the new principal note. To assign a definite character to such notes, is obviously to defeat the design of the composer, and to destroy the pleasure of the singer. The more skilful the modulation is, the more difficult it is to fix the line of demarcation between the two scales. As Mr. Murby said, in a lecture on musical instruction lately delivered before the United Association of Schoolmasters, borrowing an illustration from a sister art, the tyro in painting depicts everything in full color; but the ambition of the developed artist is to make his tints pass off into one another by imperceptible gradations, so that no observer can say where one ends and another commences. And it is the same in music. So that the best modulations are the worst for the application of this plan of reading; in other words, the difficulty of applying the syllables. increases in proportion to the excellence of the modulation, while the facility of singing such passages is in the contrary ratio.

As a necessary consequence, teachers who adopt this plan have always themselves to mark the passages of modulation in the exercises practised by their pupils. To show the futility of any such attempt, even when, made by the most skilful teacher, we subjoin a comparatively simple part song, containing a passage of modulation, as it was actually marked by an able teacher of singing, for the guidance of his pupils (Fig. 4). The scientific musician will perceive at once that the designation of the

sounds of the passage on this plan would furnish ground for endless dispute, but that no satisfactory solution of the problem could by possibility be attained.

FIG. 4.-EARLY SPRING.

Days of sweet rap-ture, Come ye in deed? Doth the sun give me

Mountain and mead? Ful-ler the brooklets Mur-mur their tale:

This is the point at which, as it appears to our judgment, all the methods which employ the movable solfa syllables go wrong: they carry the expedient beyond the just limits of its application. Within the sphere of each separate system of ratios, the movable names, which represent those ratios generally, may be employed with strict scientific accuracy and great practical advantage; but their employment in a passage of sounds effecting a transition from any one system to another, is unscientific and impracticable. It is chiefly the want of a clear perception of the proper sphere for the application of the expedient which has caused so much difference of opinion in regard to its merits; for even those who most strongly condemn the syllables on account of their inapplicability to passages of modulation, for instance, Messrs. Turle and Taylor, make use of the numerals for the very same purpose, only in this case the movable names are necessarily confined within their proper limits.

(To be continued.)

J. T.

LOCAL WORDS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

SIR,-The subjoined is a list of local words used in Lincolnshire. RICHARD DES FORGES.

Yours, &c.,

Goodnestone, Kent, March 20th, 1856.

hooks are fixed.
Gnag, to gnaw.

Heppen, clever in the use of a tool.
Hing, to hang.

Airiff, a long slender plant, having | Gallowbalk, a beam to which potthe leaves in whorls, a square stem, fibrous root, and seed like small shot; very troublesome in corn-fields. Bairn, a child. Battletwig, an earwig. Beck, a brook. Blether, a bladder.

Cob, the stone of fruit, as of a plum.
Crawk, the core of an apple, &c.
Crew, a yard in which oxen, &c. are
kept in winter, near a barn.
Crook, a hook on which a gate, &c.
hangs.

Cuts, a timber-carriage.
Dab, a child's pinafore.
Darn, a jamb, as a door-darn.
Deary, very little (used with little,
and sometimes with other words,
as a little deary bit, a tiny deary).
Dyke, a pond or ditch.

Easks, easkins, eaves of a house.
Eddish, new grass which grows after
the meadow has been mowed for
hay.

Erning, rennet.

Fadge, a wide bag for chaff, &c.,
larger than a sack.
Fore-elders, ancestors.
Fra, from.

Furbill, a bill for cutting wood.
Gablick, a crowbar, or an iron bar

for making holes in the ground. Gain, near (comp. gainer).

Holt, a small wood.

Hopple, to tie the legs together. Hopples, used for tying the legs. Hover, a narrow piece of land on which grass grows, near the fence of a field, a bank.

Kid, a fagot or a bundle of wood,

with one, two, or more binders around it. Kids are set upright for the fence of a cattle-yard. Knacker, a person who mends the harness of horses.

Lether, a ladder, also to beat or flog.
Lig, to lie down.

Ling, a kind of heath used for
brooms.

Lopper'd, milk curdled by being sour.
Lop, a flea.

Mōn't, may not.

Mulfer, the effect of wearing too
many clothes in warm weather,
as, this coat 'mulfers' me.
Mun, may, as I mun, he mun.
Nangnails, corns on the feet.
Pad, a path, as a foot-pad,' for
foot-path.

Pancheon, a milk-pan.
Parlour, a bedroom below stairs.
Piewipe, a pewit, a lapwing.
Pilling, the peel of anything.
Pinder, one who has the care of a
'pinfold.'

Pinfold, a fold for inclosing stray
cattle.

Pingle, a paddock or small pasture.
Pur, to stir the fire, also the poker.
Quire (pron. quere), the chancel of
a church.
Ramper, a road.

Spile, a vent-peg.

Spretched, chickens are said to be so
when they just break the shell.
Squatche, to put out of shape.
Squiwanack, out of shape.
Steaddle, the bottom of a thing.
Stiddy, an anvil.

Stowk, a shock of corn.
Swap, to barter.

Swath, sward, rind of bacon.
Swathe, a row of grass or corn, as
mowed.

Swip, the sails of a windmill.
Wattle, a hurdle.

Wrest, the breast of a plough, the
part which moves the earth.

Spittle, a tool for cleaning a plough. | Yax, an axletree.

POSTSCRIPT.

Cardemash, a string used for tying | Penevers, a word used by boys heavy parcels. playing marbles.

Hoveler, a waterman.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

SIR,-Since my addressing you I have been able to recall to my mind a few other local words used in Lincolnshire. I also send two other lists, one used in Bedfordshire and the other in Kent.-I am, Sir, yours truly, RICHARD DES FORGES. Goodnestone, near Wingham, Kent, March 31st, 1856.

USED IN LINCOLNSHIRE.

Ax, original pronunciation of ask (?) | Mattler, that which matches a thing. "Either axed other."-Chambers' Nudge, to thrust, or a thrust.

Cyclop. p. 12.

Band, string.

USED IN BEDFORDSHIRE.

Aint, is not, he aint, she aint, it aint.

Ax, to ask.

knur is driven about with a bent stick.

Bandy, a game at which a ball or Bever, luncheon.

APTITUDE FOR TEACHING.-Among other particulars which aptitude for teaching implies, we may mention the communication of any particular piece of instruction, at the time and in the manner in which it is most likely to arrest the attention of the pupil, and to make the most lasting impression upon his mind, and a readiness to suggest, or rather to draw forth from himself, familiar illustrations of every subject adapted to his age and to the circumstances in which he is placed.On the Management of Public Schools: from Papers on Popular Education.