given him in the galleries of the Academy of Fine Arts, and I was presented to the distinguished soldier-citizen. The chief hostess of the occasion, turning to the President and indicating with a wave of her hand the assembled men of the Orpheus Club, said, "And now, Mr. President, what would you like these gentlemen to sing for you?" Grant, in his blunt and rather callous way, replied, "Anything you please, madame; I don't know one note from another." We sang none the better, I suppose, for knowing that the guest of the occasion had no enjoyment in our performance; however, we sang for the President of the United States, and that was something.

The whole neighborhood of the city where I daily worked was full of historic memories. Old Christ Church, which Washington used to attend when he lived in Philadelphia, was just around the corner in Second Street, and though many memories of the past smiled upon me as I went to and fro in the Philadelphia streets, yet I did not consider in my youth the possibility of meeting face to face persons of prominence in my later life.

To my delight I frequently had the pleasure of seeing the aged poet Walt Whitman as he walked past our place of business in his shapeless shoes and light tweed suit of no cut at all, several buttons of his waistcoat open, and what was apparently his nightshirt, with its collar lying loose over that of his coat, likewise open at the neck and showing his gray and hairy breast. Crowning a superb and rather massive Homeric-looking head was a broad, light felt slouch hat. Thus Whitman proceeded in serene indifference to the attention of passers-by, who would almost have stared him out of countenance had he deigned to notice them.

My native city had in those times two Episcopal churches where the services were very "high": St. Clement's, which, but for the English language used, might as well have been a Roman church for all I could see, and St. Mark's, where the English organist, Minton Pyne, invited me to become a member of his choir, offering me at the same time a moderate salary to insure my attendance. I accepted with pleasure, feeling that it might be the stepping-stone to something more than the $6 a week I was now getting in my uncle's office. I, therefore, donned the cassock and cotta and for about four years participated in most of the music rendered by that vested choir. Several of its members were English singers who had been brought up in cathedrals in their mother country and knew well the kind of music performed at St. Mark's Church. The weekly rehearsals were long and arduous, but none the less interesting, as they introduced me to a phase of the art which so far I had not known.

The first program I have of services in St. Mark's Church is that of Easter Day, 1882. After a year or more, upon the departure of our English precentor, his mantle fell upon me, and I rejoiced in lifting up my voice in this kind of praise to the Power who had bestowed upon me the gift for which I was becoming increasingly thankful. Minton Pyne had been a pupil of the great organist S. S. Wesley of Gloucester Cathedral, and had brought with him to America the very best churchly traditions. To him I owe a debt of gratitude for the great assistance he was to me in my musical life in introducing me to so many of the finest sacred works, such as the Masses of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, which were constantly rendered by us, in addition to the noblest of English music.

Simultaneously I belonged for about four years to the Cecilian Oratorio Society, and assisted as one of the basses of the chorus in the productions of "The Messiah," "Israel in Egypt," " Judas Maccabæus," and "Samson" by Handel; in "The Creation" and "The Seasons" by Haydn; in "Elijah," "St. Paul," and "The Hymn of Praise" by Mendelssohn; the "Passion Music" by Bach; the "Odysseus" and "Frithjof" by Bruch; the "Stabat Mater" by Rossini; "The Redemption," "Mors et Vita," and "Gallia" by Gounod, and the oratorio "Moses in Egypt" by Rossini.

At last I became proficient enough and well enough known as an amateur soloist to be asked by the committee to sing some of the smaller bass solo parts, which, of course, I was only too proud to be able to assume. I find, for instance, from the programs before me, that at the Academy of Music in March, 1883, I sang the part of the Steersman in Max Bruch's "Odysseus" to the Ulysses of Heinrich; and on March 12, 1885, I took the part of Judas, Peter, and the High Priest in Bach's St. Matthew "Passion Music," while Max Heinrich sang the part of Christ. This was my first appearance as a soloist in any large public way in oratorio; and on April 9, 1886, I sang the part of the bass Narrator in Gounod's "Redemption," again with Heinrich as Christ. I was beginning gradually to get my musical feet under me.

Somewhere along in these years Theodore Thomas issued a call to members of all oratorio societies to come to New York to assist there in a Festival, to take place at the Seventh Regiment Armory. I went from Philadelphia with most of the members of the Cecilian and sang in Handel's " Israel in Egypt," thus performing for the first time under the baton of one whom I so revered and whom I was to know so well in later life.

On this occasion that noble singer, Myron Whitney, of Boston was one of the basses, and I shall never forget the singing of his part in "The Lord is a Man of War." I had admired Whitney from the first time I ever heard him, at the opening of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia on May 10, 1876, when in the open air before a vast concourse of people, he held his own superbly in the bass part in "The Centennial Cantata," by Dudley Buck. Whitney was an ideal oratorio singer and, better than any one I ever heard, except Santley, could negotiate the runs required of the Handelian singer, as well as the dramatic rendering of its recitative, in which so few are acceptable.

Some years ago the late Gustave Kobbé, he, perhaps somewhat my senior, in speaking of those times of our youth, said, "I have a story of you which I doubt if you have ever heard"; and proceeded to tell me that he, too, was in business in Philadelphia when young, and that one morning while he was talking to an elderly Friend, I went by, humming what seemed to be a vocal exercise. The elderly Friend stopped in his conversation and pointed to me as I passed, saying: "Does thee see that young man going along there singing? Well, he is the grandson of an old friend of mine, but I tell thee he isn't going to come to any good, for he is always fooling around after music."

I have thought often since of Kobbé's story and how essential it is for a person in order to make a success in anything to be always thinking of it and doing it, as far as lies in his power, and not to fool around after it.

Music is not only a fine art but a science, and should be learned scientifically and accurately. Otherwise it amounts to next to nothing and is likely to lead to the stupid waste of time against which my Quaker ancestors so feelingly inveighed. As a matter of fact I was trying to master one of those Handelian passages I had just heard Whitney sing. I thought more of that than of my raise to an $8 weekly wage.