winning for it a more honourable name than it has ever yet boasted.
But, the greater our privileges, the greater our responsibilities, and the more arduous our duties. We must first work for our College, in order that our School may have a worthy home. Having secured that, we must work for our School; and our School must work for Art. It is here that the difficulty lies; not only in England, but in every School in Europe. If the actual work accomplished, during the last thirty years, bore any reasonable proportion to the zeal and activity displayed, we should indeed have good cause for present thankfulness, and hope for the time to come. But it does not. In spite of all that has been done and we have not been slow to acknowledge the value of this a million times more has been left undone. We have been too easily tempted to mistake activity for progress, and zeal for honest labour: too readily beguiled by the mad desire to rush into print, into the Orchestra, the Theatre, the Cathedral itself, when we ought to have known that our proper place was in the schoolroom. To remedy this misguided enthusiasm, we need a centre of study, governed by a body of Professors possessing sufficient experience to justify our fullest confidence, and sufficient learning to give it an authority to which the rising generation may bow without endangering its own independence. This point is of immense importance. At the present moment, we have no Court of Appeal, in the competency of which our younger Composers feel any confidence whatever. It is indispensable that we should establish such a Court, in order that we may centralise both the ripe experience and the rising talent of the country; thus using the one as a means of indefinitely increasing the value and efficiency of the other. With such a point d'appui, there is no reason why England should not take the lead, and keep it. If, when our College is established, on a firm and reasonable basis, its Professors will consistently inculcate the superiority of law to anarchy; of reverence to conceit; of commonsense to dreams, and fogs, and rhapsodies à tue tête; there is nothing to prevent it from satisfactorily working out the problem on which the Art-life of the forthcoming twenty years depends, for its triumph or its downfall. We have shown that, if the experience of the Past be worth anything at all, there are but two Paths by which the glories of the Future can be reached. Now it is certain that no sign of a new path has as yet been vouchsafed to us. It may be discovered, any day; but it has not been discovered, yet: and, as we have maintained throughout, the boldest attempt hitherto made to discover it has only led back to a very old path indeed.[1] For the present, therefore, our chief hope lies in going onwards: and, surely, should we succeed in founding the Institution in question, we ought to do something in this direction! We have greater facilities for study than ever before were placed within the reach of the happiest neophyte; so clear an insight into the history of the Past, that the experience of centuries is open to every one of us; so vast a collection of examples, in every style, that the poorest of us may buy, for a few shillings, works which our fathers were thankful to copy out, for themselves, when they could get the chance. In return for all this, one thing only is required of us—hard study. The study of History—that we may learn what led to success, in times past, and what did not. The study of Counterpoint—that we may be able to write, in the language of Art, and not in a patois fit only for a rustic merry-making. The study of Form—that we may learn how to present our ideas in intelligible sequence, and to emulate, in so doing, the conciseness of true logicians. The study of Style—that we may not only learn to distinguish works of one School from those of another, but may be able, also, to seize upon that which is good, wheresoever it may present itself to our notice, while we reject that which is evil. We need entertain no fear for the Future, so long as these things are conscientiously studied by those who are destined to be its leaders. But if, in the absence of such studies, the work which ought to be done by the intellect be entrusted to the ear—in accordance with a vicious practice, which, defended by a still more vicious theory, seems to be daily gaining ground—no reasonable hope will be left to us. And, in that case, it would be infinitely to our advantage that Composers should cease to produce anything at all, and leave us to subsist upon the heirlooms which have, from time to time, been handed down to us by our forefathers, until some new and worthy manifestation shall declare itself. The Great Masters have left us quite enough to live upon: but, we cannot live upon the produce of a School of Mediocrity.
SCHOTT, Anton, born June 25, 1846, at Staufeneck in Suabia, was educated at the military academy at Ludwigsburg, Würtemberg, and served as an artillery officer through the war of 1866. Some time after, his voice attracted the attention of Pischek, and of the wife of Professor David Strauss, well known in Germany before her marriage as Agnes Schebest, a singer of note, from the latter of whom he had much instruction preparatory to his appearance on the stage. On May 8, 1870, Herr Schott made his début at Frankfort, as Max in 'Der Freischütz,' with such success that he determined to abandon the army in favour of music, though prevented for a time by the outbreak of the war of 1870, through which he served and obtained his captaincy. At the close of the war he left the army and appeared at the opera in Berlin, Schwerin, and Hanover, where he is now engaged. He has also played in Vienna and elsewhere in Germany and Austria, with great success. He sang in England, June 16, 1879, at a piano recital given by Dr. von Bülow at St. James's Hall, at a second recital, and at a New Philharmonic concert, in all which he was well received. He appeared Jan. 10, 1880, at Her Majesty's Theatre (Carl Rosa), as Fienzi, and afterwards as Lohengrin; but though his
