Having been for some years engaged in collecting Burney correspondence and other manuscripts, visiting all the places of Burney's residence in the provinces and in London, studying his published works and those of members of his family, and getting in touch with his descendants, I am glad to have an opportunity of bringing before my fellow-members of the Association both some of my findings and some of my unsolved problems. I propose very briefly to summarise Burney's career (as a mere reminder to any who have not lately been reading him or reading about him) and then to bring forward a series of particular points on which I feel myself either able to offer a little enlightenment or to be in need of asking for it.

One of the outstanding applications of psychology to education during recent years has consisted in the development of methods of measuring intelligence and the results have been so successful that intelligence tests now form part of the normal procedure in selecting pupils in school for higher forms of educational training. If intelligence tests had no other value, their use would be justified in that they have enabled us to find out many facts regarding the nature of intelligence; for example, we now know that “The observed facts indicate that all branches of intellectual activity have in common one fundamental function (or groups of functions) whereas the remaining or specific elements seem in every case to be different from that in all the others.” (Spearman.) Now it is well known that aesthetic abilities are generally regarded as standing quite apart from say ordinary vocational aptitudes. The musician and the artist have often been treated by educationists as being a class by themselves, an attitude which has been fostered by the musicians who have let the idea become current that their subject is not capable of being assessed in the same terms as those of the other school subjects. This is amusingly illustrated by the case of the musical adviser to a certain education authority who refused to attend schools at the same time as the inspectors of the ordinary school subjects.

Eighteen months ago, as the first paper of our Sixty-sixth Session, Mr. Lyndesay G. Langwill gave a graphic account of the development of the Bassoon. In his opening remarks he briefly alluded to a singular instrument called the Phagotum, and very rightly deprecated any close association between it and the well-known subject of his paper. My present purpose therefore is to supplement his allusion to this early sixteenth century instrument by giving the fullest details available of its character, together with the romantic story of its invention, as described by a contemporary writer. In this way we may place it in its true perspective; and for ease of reference our subject will be divided into four headings, viz., our sources of information, the details of its invention and completion, its scale and technique, and the position it may properly occupy in the general development of wind instruments.

Orchestral conducting, of all branches in the realm of musical interpretation, calls for the most profundity, versatility and musicianship. It is puzzling, therefore, why so little has been done to list and to codify the literature about it. That practically nothing has been done in this regard may come somewhat as a surprise to many, as it did to me a few years ago, when I first began to make a bibliography of works in this and related fields. It is difficult to hazard an explanation why this is so when one considers the tremendous interest and almost overpowering fascination the orchestral conductor exerts upon the minds of most concert-goers.