[Illustration: MORGAN KINGSTON]
"I said the singer should have a finished technic in order to express
the musical idea aright, in order to be an artist. But technic is never
finished; it goes on developing and broadening as we ourselves grow and
develop. We learn by degrees what to add on and what to take away, in
our effort to perfect technic. Students, especially in America, are too
apt to depend on rules merely. They think if they absolutely follow the
rules, they must necessarily become singers; if they find that you
deviate from rule they tell you of it, and hold you up to the letter of
the law, rather than its meaning and spirit. I answer, rules should be
guides, not tyrants. Rules are necessary in the beginning; later we get
beyond them,--or rather we work out their spirit and are not hide-bound
by the letter.