'" (_Poeme de la Vie Humaine_:
Introduction to the Second Series, 1905.) One may add to this the words
of a professor of singing in a primary school for Higher Education in
Paris: "Folk-music--well, it is very good for the provinces." (Quoted by
Buchor in the Introduction to the Second Series of the _Poeme_, 1902.)]
It is nearly twenty-five years since M. Bourgault-Ducoudray, who was one
of the people who fostered the growth of choral singing in France,
pointed out, in an account of the teaching of singing, the usefulness of
making children sing the old popular airs of the French provinces, and
of getting the teachers to make collections of them. In 1895, as the
result of a meeting organised by the _Correspondance generale de
l'Instruction primaire_, delightful collections of folk-songs were
distributed in the schools. The melodies were taken from old airs
collected by M. Julien Tiersot, and M. Maurice Buchor had put some fresh
and sparkling verses to them. "M. Buchor," I wrote at the time, "will
enjoy a pleasure not common to poets of our day: his songs will soar up
into the open air, like the lark in his _Chanson de labour_. The
populace may even recognise its own spirit in them, and one day take
possession of them, as if they were of their own contriving.
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