A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Wilhem, Guillaume

by Richard Buckley Litchfield

WILHEM, Guillaume Louis Bocquillon, a musician known chiefly by his efforts to promote the popular teaching of singing, was born at Paris, Dec. 18, 1781. In early youth he was in the army, but an irresistible passion for music made him take to it as the pursuit of his life. After passing through the Paris Conservatoire, he became one of the Professors in the Lycée Napoleon, and afterwards had a post in the College Henri IV. His original compositions were few chiefly settings of Beranger's lyrics. It was about the year 1815 that he began to interest himself in the class-teaching of music in schools. Soon after this, Béranger, who knew him well, met one day in the streets of Paris the Baron Gérando, who was at the head of a society for promoting elementary education. 'We are busy,' he said to the poet, 'about getting singing taught in the schools; can you find us a teacher?' 'I've got your man,' said Béranger, and told him of Wilhem's work. This led to Wilhem's being put in charge of the musical part of the society's work, and afterwards, as his plans broadened out, he was made director-general of music in the municipal schools of Paris. He threw himself into this cause with an enthusiasm which soon produced striking results. Besides the school teaching, he had classes which gave instruction to thousands of pupils, mainly working people; and out of this presently grew the establishment of the Orpheon, the vast organisation which has since covered France with singing societies. [See vol. ii. p. 611.]

Wilhem's system has long ceased to be used in France, and in England it is known only in connection with the name of Mr. Hullah, who adapted Wilhem's books for English use. [See Hullah, vol. i. p. 755.] Here it is often spoken of as a 'Method,' in the sense of a particular mode of presenting the principles of music. But this is a mistake. The specialty of Wilhem's system turned on the point of school organisation. The plan of 'Mutual Instruction,' as it was called, was then much in vogue in France as a way of economising teaching power, and the point of the Wilhem System was the application of this idea to the teaching of singing. A French authority describes it in these words: 'Les élèves, divisés en groupes de differentes forces, étudiaient, sous la direction du plus avancé d'entre eux, le tableau [sheet of exercises, etc.] qui convenait le mieux à leur degré d'avancement. Ces différentes groupes s'exercaient sous la surveillance générale du Maitre.' Wilhem's principal class-book, the 'Manuel Musical à l'usage des Colléges, des Institutions, des Ecoles, et des Cours de chant,' is an explanation of the ordinary written language of music, clefs, staves, signatures, time-symbols, etc., interspersed with a number of solfeggio exercises for class practice; the explanations are of the kind usually found in musical instruction books. His special way of arranging the classes is explained in his 'Guide de la Methode: Guide complet, ou l'instruction pour l'emploi simultané des tableaux de lecture musicale et de chant élémentaire' (4th edition is dated 1839). In this he gives a number of detailed directions as to class arrangements, the manner in which the various groups are to stand round the school-room, each in a semi-circular line; the way in which 'moniteurs' and 'moniteurs-chefs' are to be selected—the way in which one class may be doing 'dictation' while another is singing, and so on.^[1] The method depended wholly on the 'enseignement mutuel,' and when that fashion of school management went out, it ceased to be used.

The real merit of Wilhem was the energy and self-devotion he gave to the task of getting music brought into the curriculum of primary schools. Before his time part-singing, in a popular or general way, was apparently unknown in France, and it is for what he did to popularise it, irrespective of any specialty of method, that his name deserves to be held in honour. His life was entirely given to the cause. It brought him no profit—his 'onappointements' were but 6000 francs a year—and though his particular method has gone out of use, the effect of his work has been lasting. The Orphéon testifies to its vitality. He died in 1842.

The Wilhem system was brought into England by the late Mr. John Hullah,^[2] acting under the direction of the then educational authorities of the country in the years 1840, 1841 . [See Hullah, vol. i. p. 756a.] Mr. Hullah's 'Manual' (in its earlier forms) was framed pretty closely on the model of Wilhem's, but the principle of the monitorial, or so-called 'mutual,' instruction was dropped. And in another important detail the aspect of the method here was different from that of its prototype in France. Wilhem had used the 'Fixed Do' plan of solmisation, the common mode, in that country, of using the ancient sol-fa syllables. [See Solmisation, vol. ii. p. 552.] But in England the old primordial 'tonic' use of the syllables had always prevailed—the use known as 'Moveable Do,' from the Do being always kept to signify the tonic of the piece, and therefore having a different place on the staff according to the key in which a piece is written. This use has been traditional in England for centuries, and as the Wilhem plan of the 'Fixed Do' went in the teeth of the ancient practice, hot controversy arose on its introduction. This controversy is now chiefly of historical interest, for the matter has settled itself by the nearly total disappearance of the 'Fixed Do' as a method of class or school teaching. School teachers have found the other plan to be the only one which produces the desired result of training 'sight-readers,' and 'Moveable Do' in its modern and fully developed form of ' Tonic Sol-Fa ' has become largely recognized. But it would be unfair to underrate on this account the great public service done by Mr. Hullah in the matter. The decisive step here, as in France, was the introduction of any kind of musical teaching into the schools, and the proof that it was possible to teach singing to large classes. In this sense Mr. Hullah's plans were truly a great step forward, and had for some time a great success.

The errors and deficiencies of the system are easier to perceive now, when the general principles of teaching are better understood, than they were when Wilhem and Hullah successively attacked the problem of teaching the whole world to sing. Ill-directed in many ways as their work was (chiefly because it departed from the old lines), it was work for which the people of both countries have good reason to be grateful.

[ R. B. L. ]

1. Probably the fact that village schools, and primary schools generally, are or were usually carried on in one schoolroom, gave special importance to these mechanical arrangements.
2. Mr. Hullah died in the year 1884. His adaptation was entitled in early editions 'Wilhem's Method of teaching Singing, adapted to English use, under the superintendence of the Committee of Council on Education. By John Hullah.'