THIS question seems to be with us again. It rises every so often in the Public School Music world. This time it is in a very mild form compared to some of its previous incarnations --probably because vocal music reading has been largely displaced by appreciation, "free singing," creative music, eurythmics, and other alibis and defensive psychologies. When reverberations of the discussion are heard, one never knows whether it is simply an instrumentalist at it again, a teacher honestly hunting for an easier, more direct method of teaching vocal musicianship, or someone just trying to get along without good, hard work. To tell the truth, all the so-called non-syllable systems I have ever observed in operation seemed to be methods for following someone else by ear, or more or less successful guessing games. There are a number of ways for the vocalist to learn to read music. Let that be admitted at once, but the tonic sol-fa people were the ones who really taught plain folks with no instrumental background to read vocal music independently of any instrument. Incidentally, they laid the truest and best foundation for all instrumental work.