CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS.

NEW SERIES.-No. 27.

JOHN HULLAH.

THE composer of the "Three Fishers" holds a very special position among all lovers of ballad music. He has poured into our drawingrooms a flood of pure and charming melody, and, through the large number of his songs which have become popular favourites, has endeared himself to all classes of society. But his life has another value, which is one of very great and wide importance to the nation. Mr. Hullah has been one of the civilisers of the present age-one of those beneficent beings who seem born for the purpose of bringing a ray of light into the dark mass of the unthinking people. The old saying that it is an ill wind which blows nobody any good is very markedly illustrated in this case; as it was a monetary calamity which befell his mother that first induced Mr. Hullah to take to music, as a secondary occupation. His principal study at that time was architecture, and he possesses a very remarkable talent in this direction; but when once he began teaching music he practically began the great work of his life. He became possessed by a profound belief that there is nothing so civilising as the art of music, and as this conviction grew and strengthened, he gradually became one with the idea, and devoted himself to its development. So ́far as genius can be said to be hereditary, Mr. Hullah's gift originated with his mother, who had a very wonderful voice, and who took lessons from John Danby. Mr. Hullah was born at Worcester, June 27, 1812; when quite young hene to London, and in 1839 his career in the cause of education commenced. But he had already begun to work as a composer; between 1836 and 1839 he composed three operas. The libretto of the first of these operas, "The Village Coquette," was written by Charles Dickens. This was produced at the St. James's Theatre in 1836, and was very successful. It was followed by "The Barbers of Barossa" and "The Outpost," both produced at Covent Garden Theatre. About this time, when Mr. Hullah had begun considering how the people were to be taught, he became acquainted with Dr. Kay, afterwards Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. Dr. Kay was then secretary to the

Committee of Council on Education. When Mr. Hullah became associated with this gentleman, who was working up the education of the country, he was sent over to France to investigate various matters in connection with musical training. In the course of these investigations he discovered a system working in a very limited way, and taught by its originator, Wilhem. This "Wilhem system" was, to a great extent, the actual basis of what is now known as the "Hullah system.” Mr. Hullah carried home the idea of this new method; and he did his first bit of teaching, gave his first class lesson, on Feb. 18, 1840, in the Training College, founded at Battersea by Dr. Kay and Mr. Edward Carlton Tufnell. This Battersea College, which was started at the cost of these two gentlemen, was the first that ever existed in England, and it interested people very much. At that time a brother of Lord Auckland, the Hon. and Rev. Robert Eden, was vicar of Battersea. Both he and his wife, who was a Miss Arkwright, were very talented and very much interested in the subject of education. Their house was next to Dr. Kay's, and they took an active and incessant interest in the reform which he was introducing. They invited numbers of distinguished people to come down to hear the lessons, and their hospitable house brought together a great many important persons and interested them in the subject. The object of the college was to educate teachers in the parochial schools; and Mr. Hullah's great effort to enable musical teachers to understand their work naturally found its home here. The peculiar advantages of his system are thus shown in the preface to the first edition of "Wilhem's Method of Teaching, adapted to English use by John Hullah." Mr. Hullah describes his system as "founded upon and embracing all the practical points of the method of Wilhem," and then goes on to say: "This method is at once simple and scientific-it contains no new and startling theories-makes no attempt at the very questionable advantage of new musical characters; and rests its only claim to novelty upon a careful analysis of the theory and practice of vocal music, from which the arrangement of the lessons results, and which ascend from lessons of the simplest character, on matters adapted to the comprehension of a child, through a series of steps, until those subjects which it might otherwise be difficult to understand are introduced in a natural and logical order, so as to appear as simple and easy as the earliest steps of the method. These are the characteristics of all processes in elementary education which deserve the name of method. This is the characteristic to which the method of Wilhem lays claim, as well as to a few very simple and ingenious mechanical contrivances."

The great revelation to the learners of this new system was that a painful operation became a pleasure; and the secret of this change lay in the fact that the pupils found they began to understand their