I am impelled to the publication of this book by several motives. But chiefly, by the constant and general request for a short but comprehensive manual of practical exercises for vocal training and a list of selections fitted for general drill and practice. This request has seemed to me much more urgent, be cause of the source from whence it comes. During something over twelve years of professional work, it has been my pleasant office to appear in over two thousand public entertainments, to drill classes in some sixty Academies, Colleges and Universities, and to have enrolled over twelve thousand students. It is because the request has come and still comes from these patrons and pupils, that I look upon it as not to be disregarded. Many of these former students are at present Principals and Teachers in Schools, Academies and Colleges, more than two hundred of them being professional teachers of Reading and Elocution, and these generally have asked me to put these exercises into book form.