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Public Speaking: Principles and Practice

by Irvah Lester Winter · English · Gutenberg #6333 · 682,018 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Public Speaking: Principles and Practice

Author: Irvah Lester Winter


        
Release date: August 1, 2004 [eBook #6333]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUBLIC SPEAKING: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE ***




Anne Soulard, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.



PUBLIC SPEAKING
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE

BY IRVAH LESTER WINTER




IN OFFERING A BOOK TO STUDENTS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
THE AUTHOR WOULD PAY WHAT TRIBUTE IS HERE POSSIBLE
TO
CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT
WHO FOR MANY YEARS HAS TAUGHT BY EXAMPLE
THE POWER AND BEAUTY OF PERFECTED SPEECH




PREFACE



This book is designed to set forth the main principles of effective
platform delivery, and to provide a large body of material for student
practice. The work laid out may be used to form a separate course of
study, or a course of training running parallel with a course in
debating or other original speaking. It has been prepared with a view
also to that large number who want to speak, or have to speak, but
cannot have the advantage of a teacher. Much is therefore said in the
way of caution, and untechnical language is used throughout.

The discussion of principles in Part One is intended as a help towards
the student's understanding of his task, and also as a common basis of
criticism in the relation between teacher and pupil. The preliminary
fundamental work of Part Two, Technical Training, deals first with the
right formation of tone, the development of voice as such, the securing
of a fixed right vocal habit. Following comes the adapting of this
improved voice to the varieties of use, or expressional effect,
demanded of the public speaker. After this critical detailed drill, the
student is to take the platform, and apply his acquired technique to
continued discourse, receiving criticism after each entire piece of
work.

The question as to what should be the plan and the content of Part
Three, Platform Practice, has been determined simply by asking what are
the distinctly varied conditions under which men most frequently speak.
It is regarded as profitable for the student to practice, at least to
some extent, in all the several kinds of speech here chosen. In thus
cultivating versatility, he will greatly enlarge his power of
expression, and will, at length, discover wherein lies his own special
capability.

The principal aim in choosing the selections has been to have them
sufficiently alive to be attractive to younger speakers, and not so
heavy as to be unsuited to their powers. Some of them have proved
effective by use; many others are new. In all cases they are of good
quality.

It is hoped that the new features of the book will be found useful. One
of these is a group of lighter after-dinner speeches and anecdotes. It
has been said that, in present-day speech-making, humor has supplanted
former-day eloquence. It plays anyway a considerable part in various
kinds of speaking. The young speaker is generally ineffective in the
expression of pleasantry, even his own. Practice in the speaking of
wholesome humor is good for cultivating quality of voice and ease of
manner, and for developing the faculty of giving humorous turn to one's
own thought. It is also entertaining to fellow students. Other new
features in the book are a practice section for the kind of informal
speaking suited to the club or the classroom, and a section given to
the occasional poem, the kind of poem that is associated with speech-
making.

A considerable space is given to argumentative selections because of
the general interest in debating, and because a need has been felt for
something suited for special forensic practice among students of law.
Some poetic selections are introduced into Part Two in order to give
attractive variety to the student's work, and to provide for the
advantage of using verse form in some of the vocal training. The few
character sketches introduced may serve for cultivating facility in
giving entertaining touches to serious discourse. All the selections
for platform practice are designed, as seems most fitting, to occupy
about five minutes in delivery. Original speeches, wherein the student
presents his own thought, may be intermingled with this more technical
work in delivery, or may be taken up in a more special way in a
subsequent course.

It should, perhaps, be suggested that the plan of procedure here
prescribed can be modified to suit the individual teacher or student.
The method of advance explained in the Discussion of Principles is
believed to be the best, but some who use the book may prefer, for
example, to begin with the second group of selections, the familiar,
colloquial passages, and proceed from these to those more elevated and
sustained. This or any other variation from the plan here proposed can,
of course, be adopted. For any plan the variety of material is deemed
sufficient, and the method of grouping will be found convenient and
practical.

The making of this kind of book would not be possible except for the
generous privileges granted by many authors and many publishers of
copyrighted works. For the special courtesies of all whose writings
have a place here the editor would make the fullest acknowledgment of
indebtedness. The books from which extracts are taken have been
mentioned, in every case, in a prominent place with the title of the
selection, in order that so far as possible students may be led
carefully to read the entire original, and become fully imbued with its
meaning and spirit, before undertaking the vocal work on the selected
portion. For the purpose of such reading, it would be well to have
these books collected on a section of shelves in school libraries for
easy and ready reference.

The publishers from whose books selections have been most liberally
drawn are, Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, Messrs. Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard, Messrs. Little, Brown, and Company, of Boston, and Messrs.
Harper and Brothers, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, Messrs. G. P.
Putnam's Sons, Messrs. G. W. Dillingham Company, Messrs. Doubleday,
Page and Company, and Mr. C. P. Farrell, New York. Several of the
after-dinner speeches are taken from the excellent fifteen volume
collection, "Modern Eloquence," by an arrangement with Geo. L. Shuman
and Company, Chicago, publishers. In the first three volumes of this
collection will be found many other attractive after-dinner speeches.

I. L. W. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.




CONTENTS



PREFACE
INTRODUCTION


PART ONE

A DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES

TECHNICAL TRAINING
  Establishing the Tone
  Vocal Flexibility
  The Formation of Words
  Making the Point
  Indicating Values and Relations
  Expressing the Feeling
  Showing the Picture
  Expression by Action

PLATFORM PRACTICE
  The Formal Address
  The Public Lecture
  The Informal Discussion
  Argumentative Speech
  The After-Dinner Speech
  The Occasional Poem
  The Making of the Speech


PART TWO

TECHNICAL TRAINING

ESTABLISHING THE TONE
  O Scotia!.......................... _Robert Burns_
  O Rome! My Country!................ _Lord Byron_
  Ring Out, Wild Bells!.............. _Alfred Lord Tennyson_
  Roll On, Thou Deep!................ _Lord Byron_
  Thou Too, Sail On!................. _Henry W. Longfellow_
  O Tiber, Father Tiber!............. _Lord Macaulay_
  Marullus to the Roman Citizens..... _William Shakespeare_
  The Recessional.................... _Rudyard Kipling_
  The Cradle of Liberty.............. _Daniel Webster_
  The Impeachment of Warren Hastings. _Edmund Burke_
  Bunker Hill........................ _Daniel Webster_
  The Gettysburg Address............. _Abraham Lincoln_

VOCAL FLEXIBILITY
  Cęsar, the Fighter................. _Henry W. Longfellow_
  Official Duty...................... _Theodore Roosevelt_
  Look Well to your Speech........... _George Herbert Palmer_
  Hamlet to the Players.............. _William Shakespeare_
  Bellario's Letter.................. _William Shakespeare_
  Casca, Speaking of Cęsar........... _William Shakespeare_
  Squandering of the Voice........... _Henry Ward Beecher_
  The Training of the Gentleman...... _William J. Tucker_

MAKING THE POINT
  Brutus to the Roman Citizens....... _William Shakespeare_
  The Precepts of Polonius........... _William Shakespeare_
  The High Standard.................. _Lord Rosebery_
  On Taxing the Colonies............. _Edmund Burke_
  Justifying the President........... _John C. Spooner_
  Britain and America................ _John Bright_

VALUES AND TRANSITIONS
  King Robert of Sicily.............. _Henry W. Longfellow_
  Laying the Atlantic Cable.......... _James T. Fields_
  O'Connell, the Orator.............. _Wendell Phillips_
  Justification for Impeachment...... _Edmund Burke_
  Wendell Phillips, the Orator....... _George William Curtis_
  On the Disposal of Public Lands.... _Robert Y. Hayne_
  The Declaration of Independence.... _Abraham Lincoln_

EXPRESSING THE FEELING
  Northern Greeting to Southern Veterans.
  ................................... _Henry Cabot Lodge_
  Matches and Overmatches............ _Daniel Webster_
  The Coalition...................... _Daniel Webster_
  In His Own Defense................. _Robert Emmet_
  On Resistance to Great Britain..... _Patrick Henry_
  Invective against Louis Bonaparte.. _Victor Hugo_

SHOWING THE PICTURE
  Mount, the Doge of Venice!......... _Mary Russell Mitford_
  The Revenge........................ _Alfred Lord Tennyson_
  A Vision of War.................... _Robert G. Ingersoll_
  Sunset Near Jerusalem.............. _Corwin Knapp Linson_
  A Return in Triumph................ _T. De Witt Talmage_
  A Return in Defeat................. _Henry W. Grady_

EXPRESSION BY ACTION
  In Our Forefathers' Day............ _T. De Witt Talmage_
  Cassius against Cęsar.............. _William Shakespeare_
  The Spirit of the South............ _Henry W. Grady_
  Something Rankling Here............ _Daniel Webster_
  Faith in the People................ _John Bright_
  The French against Hayti........... _Wendell Phillips_
  The Necessity of Force............. _John M. Thurston_
  Against War with Mexico............ _Thomas Corwin_
  The Murder of Lovejoy.............. _Wendell Phillips_

DEPICTING CHARACTER
  A Tale of the Plains............... _Theodore Roosevelt_
  Gunga Din.......................... _Rudyard Kipling_
  Address of Sergeant Buzfuz......... _Charles Dickens_
  A Natural Philosopher.............. _Maccabe_
  Response to a Toast................ _Litchfield Moseley_
  Partridge at the Play.............. _Henry Fielding_
  A Man's a Man for a That........... _Robert Burns_
  Artemus Ward's Lecture............. _Charles Farrar Brown_
  Jim Bludso, of the Prairie Belle... _John Hay_
  The Trial of Abner Barrow.......... _Richard Harding Davis_


PART THREE

PLATFORM PRACTICE

THE SPEECH OF FORMAL OCCASION
  The Benefits of a College Education _Abbott Lawrence Lowell_
  What the College Gives............. _Le Baron Russell Briggs_
  Memorial Day Address............... _John D. Long_
  William McKinley................... _John Hay_
  Robert E. Lee...................... _John W. Daniel_
  Farewell Address to the United States Senate.
  ...................................._Henry Clay_
  The Death of Garfield.............. _James G. Blaine_
  The Second Inaugural Address....... _Abraham Lincoln_
  The Death of Prince Albert......... _Benjamin Disraeli_
  An Appreciation of Mr. Gladstone... _Arthur J. Balfour_
  William E. Gladstone............... _Lord Rosebery_
  The Soldier's Creed................ _Horace Porter_
  Competition in College............. _Abbott Lawrence Lowell_

THE PUBLIC LECTURE
  A Master of the Situation.......... _James T. Fields_
  Wit and Humor...................... _Minot J. Savage_
  A Message to Garcia................ _Elbert Hubbard_
  Shakespeare's "Mark Antony"........ _Anonymous_
  André and Hale..................... _Chauncey M. Depew_
  The Battle of Lexington............ _Theodore Parker_
  The Homes of the People............ _Henry W. Grady_
  General Ulysses S. Grant........... _Canon G. W. Farrar_
  American Courage................... _Sherman Hoar_
  The Minutemen of the Revolution.... _George William Curtis_
  Paul Revere's Ride................. _George William Curtis_
  The Arts of the Ancients........... _Wendell Phillips_
  A Man without a Country............ _Edward Everett Hale_
  The Execution of Rodriguez......... _Richard Harding Davis_

THE INFORMAL DISCUSSION
  The Flood of Books................. _Henry van Dyke_
  Effectiveness in Speaking.......... _William Jennings Bryan_
  Books, Literature and the People... _Henry van Dyke_
  Education for Business............. _Charles William Eliot_
  The Beginnings of American Oratory. _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
  Daniel Webster, the Man............ _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
  The Enduring Value of Speech....... _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_
  To College Girls................... _Le Baron Russell Briggs_
  The Art of Acting.................. _Henry Irving_
  Address to the Freshman Class at Harvard University
  ...................................._Charles William Eliot_
  With Tennyson at Farringford....... _By His Son_
  Notes on Speech-Making............. _Brander Matthews_
  Hunting the Grizzly................ _Theodore Roosevelt_


ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

DEBATES AND CAMPAIGN SPEECHES
  On Retaining the Philippine Islands _George F. Hoar_
  On Retaining the Philippine Islands _William McKinley_
  Debate on the Tariff............... _Thomas B. Reed_
  Debate on the Tariff............... _Charles F. Crisp_
  South Carolina and Massachusetts... _Robert Y. Hayne_
  South Carolina and Massachusetts... _Daniel Webster_
  The Republican Party............... _John Hay_
  Nominating Ulysses S. Grant........ _Roscoe Conkling_
  The Choice of a Party.............. _Roscoe Conkling_
  Nominating John Sherman............ _James A. Garfield_
  The Democratic Party............... _William E. Russell_
  The Call to Democrats.............. _Alton B. Parker_
  Nominating Woodrow Wilson.......... _John W. Wescott_
  Democratic Faith................... _William E. Russell_
  England and America................ _John Bright_
  On Home Rule in Ireland............ _William E. Gladstone_

THE LEGAL PLEA
  The Dartmouth College Case......... _Daniel Webster_
  In Defense of the Kennistons....... _Daniel Webster_
  In Defense of the Kennistons, II... _Daniel Webster_
  In Defense of John E. Cook......... _D. W. Voorhees_
  In Defense of the Soldiers......... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
  In Defense of the Soldiers, II..... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
  In Defense of the Soldiers, III.... _Josiah Quincy, Jr._
  In Defense of Lord George Gordon... _Lord Thomas Erskine_
  Pronouncing Sentence for High Treason
  ................................... _Sir Alfred Wills_
  The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.. _George S. Boutwell_
  The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.. _William M. Evarts_
  The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, II
  ................................... _William M. Evarts_

THE AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
  At a University Club Dinner........ _Henry E. Howland_
  The Evacuation of New York......... _Joseph H. Choate_
  Ties of Kinship.................... _Sir Edwin Arnold_
  Canada, England and the United States
  ................................... _Sir Wilfred Laurier_
  Monsieur and Madame................ _Paul Blouet (Max O'Rell)_
  The Typical American............... _Henry W. Grady_
  The Pilgrim Mothers................ _Joseph H. Choate_
  Bright Land to Westward............ _E. O. Wolcott_
  Woman.............................. _Theodore Tilton_
  Abraham Lincoln.................... _Horace Porter_
  To Athletic Victors................ _Henry E. Howland_

THE OCCASIONAL POEM
  Charles Dickens.................... _William Watson_
  The Mariners of England............ _Thomas Campbell_
  Class Poem......................... _Langdon Warner_
  A Troop of the Guard............... _Hermann Hagedorn, Jr._
  The Boys........................... _Oliver Wendell Holmes_

THE ANECDOTE
  The Mob Conquered.................. _George William Curtis_
  An Example of Faith................ _Henry W. Grady_
  The Rail-Splitter.................. _H. L. Williams_
  O'Connell's Wit.................... _Wendell Phillips_
  A Reliable Team.................... _Theodore Roosevelt_
  Meg's Marriage..................... _Robert Collyer_
  Outdoing Mrs. Partington........... _Sidney Smith_
  Circumstance not a Cause........... _Sidney Smith_
  More Terrible than the Lions....... _A. A. McCormick_
  Irving, the Actor.................. _John De Morgan_
  Wendell Phillips's Tact............ _James Burton Pond_
  Baked Beans and Culture............ _Eugene Field_
  Secretary Chase's Chin-Fly......... _F. B. Carpenter_


INDEX OF TITLES
INDEX OF AUTHORS




INTRODUCTION


Happily, it is no longer necessary to argue that public speaking is a
worthy subject for regular study in school and college. The teaching of
this subject, in one form or another, is now fairly well established.
In each of the larger universities, including professional schools and
summer schools, the students electing the courses in speaking number
well into the hundreds. These courses are now being more generally
placed among those counted towards the academic degrees. The demand for
trained teachers in the various branches of the work in schools and
colleges is far above the present supply. Educators in general look
with more favor upon this kind of instruction, recognizing its
practical usefulness and its cultural value. The question of the
present time, then, is not whether or not the subject shall have a
place. Some sort of place it always has had and always will have.
Present discussion should rather bear upon the policy and the method of
that instruction, the qualifications to be required of teachers, and
the consideration for themselves and their work that teachers have a
right to expect.

Naturally, public speaking in the form of debating has received favor
among educators. It seems to serve the ends of practice in speaking and
it gives also good mental discipline. The high regard for debating is
not misplaced. We can hardly overestimate the good that debating has
done to the subject of speaking in the schools and colleges. The rigid
intellectual discipline involved in debating has helped to establish
public speaking in the regular curriculum, thus gaining for it, and for
teachers in it, greater respect. To bring training in speech into close
relation with training in thought, and with the study of expression in
English, is most desirable. This, however, does _not_ mean that
training in speech, as a distinct object in itself, should be allowed
to fall into comparative neglect. It is quite possible that, along with
the healthy disapproval of false elocution and meaningless declamation,
may come an underestimation of the important place of a right kind and
a due degree of technical training in voice and general form.

In a recent book on public speaking, the statement is made that it is
all well enough, if it so happens, for a speaker to have a pleasing
voice, but it is not essential. This, though true in a sense, is
misleading, and much teaching of this sort would be unfortunate for
young speakers. It would seem quite unnecessary to say that beauty of
voice is not in itself a primary object in vocal training for public
speaking. The object is to make voices effective. In the effective use
of any other instrument, we apply the utmost skill for the perfect
adjustment or coordination of all the means of control. We do this for
the attainment of power, for the conserving of energy, for the insuring
of endurance and ease of operation. This is the end in the training of
the voice. It is to avoid friction. It is to prevent nervous strain,
muscular distortion, and failing power, and to secure easy response to
the will of the speaker. The point not wholly understood or heeded is
that, as a rule, the unpleasing voice is an indication of ill
adjustment and friction. It denotes a mechanism wearing on itself--it
means a voice that will weaken or fail before its time--a voice that
needs repair.

Since speech is to express a speaker's thought, training in speech
should not be altogether dissociated from training in thinking. It
ought to go hand in hand, indeed, with the study of English, from first
to last. But training in voice and in the method of speech is a
technical matter. It ought not to be left to the haphazard treatment,
the intense spurring on, of vocally unskilled coaches for speaking
contests. Discussions about the teaching of speaking are often very
curious. We are frequently told by what means a few great orators have
succeeded, but we are hardly ever informed of the causes from which
many other speakers have been embarrassed or have failed. A book or
essay is written to prove, from the individual experience of the
author, the infallibility of a method. He was able to succeed, the
argument runs, only by this or that means; therefore all should do as
he did. It seems very plausible and attractive to read, for instance,
that to succeed in speaking, it is only necessary to plunge in and be
in earnest. But another writer points out that this is quite absurd;
that many poor speakers have not lacked in intense earnestness and
sincerity; that it isn't feeling or intense spirit alone that insures
success, but it is the attainment as well of a vocal method. Yet he
goes on to argue that this vocal method, this forming of a public
speaking voice and style, cannot be rightly gained from the teachers;
it must be acquired through the exercise of each man's own will; if a
man finds he is going wrong he must will to go right--as if many men
had not persistently but unsuccessfully exercised their will to this
very end. It is so easy, and so attractive, to resolve all problems
into one idea. President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, once
said that he always avoided the man or the book that proclaimed one
idea for the correcting of society's ills. These ideas on which books
or essays are written are too obviously fallacious to need extended
comment; the wonder is that they are often quoted and commended as
being beneficial in their teaching. If we want to row or sprint or play
golf, we do not simply go in and do our utmost; we apply the best
technical skill to the art; we seek to learn how, from the experience
of the past, and through the best instructors obtainable. Both common
sense and experience show that the use of the human voice in the art of
speaking is not the one thing, among all things, that cannot be
successfully taught. The results of vocal teaching show, on the
contrary, from multitudes of examples, from volumes of testimony, that
there are few branches of instruction wherein the specially trained
teacher is so much needed, and can be so effective as in the art of
speaking.

In an experience extending over many years, an experience dealing with
about all the various forms of public speaking and vocal teaching, the
present writer has tried many methods, conducted classes on several
different plans, learned the needs, observed the efforts, considered
the successes and failures, of many men and women of various ages and
of many callings. The constant and insistent fact in all this period of
experience has been that skillful, technical instruction, as such, is
the one kind of instruction that should always be provided where public
speaking is taught, and the one that the student should not fail to
secure when it is at hand. Other elements in good speech-making may, if
necessary, be obtained from other sources. The teacher of speaking
should teach speech. He should teach something else also, but he
should, as a technician, teach that. The multitude of men and women
who, in earlier and later life, come, in vocal trouble, to seek help
from the experienced teacher, and the abundance of testimony as to the
satisfactory results; the repeated evidences of failure to produce
rightly trained voices wholly by so-called inspirational methods; the
frequent evidences of pernicious vocal results from the forcing of
young voices in the overintense and hasty efforts made in preparing for
prize speaking, acting, and debating,--all these may not come to the
understanding of the ordinary observer; they may not often, perhaps,
come within the experience of the exceptionally gifted individuals who
are usually cited as examples of distinguished success; they cannot
impress themselves on educators who have little or no relation with
this special subject; they naturally come into the knowledge and
experience of the specially trained teacher of public speaking, who is
brought into intimate relations with the subject and deals with all
sorts and conditions of men. Out of this experience comes the strong
conviction that the teacher of public speaking should be a vocal
technician and a vocal physician, able to teach constructively and to
treat correctively, knowing all he can of all that has been taught
before, but teaching only as much of what he knows as is necessary to
any individual.

For the dignity and worth of the teaching, the teacher of speaking
should be trained, and should be a trainer, as has been indirectly
said, in some other subject--in English literature or composition, in
debating, history, or what not. He should be one of the academic
faculty--concerned with thought, which speech expresses. He should not,
for his other subject, be mainly concerned with gymnastics or
athletics; he should not, for his own good and the consequent good of
his work, be wholly taken up merely with the teaching of technical form
in speaking. He should not be merely--if at all--a coach in inter-
collegiate contests; nor should his service to an institution be
adjudged mainly by the results of such contests. He should be an
independent, intellectually grown and growing man, one who--in his
exceptionally intimate relations with students--will have a large and
right influence on student life. The offer recently held out by a
university of a salary and an academic rank equal to its best, to a
sufficiently qualified instructor in public speaking, was one of the
several signs of a sure movement of to-day in the right direction--the
demand for a man of high character and broad culture, specially skilled
in the technical subject he was to teach, and the providing of a worthy
position.

One fact that needs to be impressed upon governing bodies of school and
college is that the cultivation of good speaking cannot but be
unsatisfactory when it is continued over only a very brief time. It may
only do mischief. A considerable period is necessary, as is the case
with other subjects, for reaching the student intelligence, for molding
the faculties, for maturing the powers, for adapting method to the
individual, and for bringing the personality out through the method, so
that method disappears. Senator George F. Hoar once gave very sensible
advice in an address to an audience of Harvard students. He did not
content himself with dwelling on the inevitable platitude, first have
something to say, and then say it; he said he had been, in all his
career, at a special disadvantage in public speaking, from the want of
early training in the use of his voice; and he urged that students
would do well not only to take advantage of such training in college,
but to have their teacher, if it were possible, follow them, for a
time, into their professional work. This idea was well exemplified in
the case of Phillips Brooks--a speaker of spontaneity, simplicity, and
splendid power. It is said that, in the period of his pulpit work, in
the midst of his absorbing church labors, he made it a duty to go from
time to time for a period of work with his teacher of voice, that he
might be kept from falling back into wrong ways. It is often said that,
if a man has it in him, he will speak well anyway. It is emphatically
the man who has it in him, the man of intense temperament, like that of
Phillips Brooks, who most needs the balance wheel, the sure reliance,
of technique. That this technique should not be too technical; that
form should not be too formal; that teaching should not be too good, or
do too much, is one of the principles of good teaching. The point
insisted on is that a considerable time is needed, as it is in other
kinds of teaching, for thoroughly working out a few essential
principles; for overcoming a few obstinate faults; for securing matured
results by the right process of gradual development.

There is much cause for gratification in the evidences of a growing
appreciation, in all quarters, of the place due to spoken English, as a
study to be taught continuously side by side with written English. Much
progress has also been made toward making youthful platform speaking,
as well as youthful writing, more rational in form, more true in
spirit, more useful for its purpose. In good time written and spoken
English, conjoined with disciplinary training in thought and
imagination, will both become firmly established in their proper place
as subjects to be thoroughly and systematically taught. Good teaching
will become traditional, and good teachers not rare. And among the
specialized courses in public speaking an important place should always
be given to an exact training in voice and in the whole art of
effective delivery.




PART ONE


A DISCUSSION OF PRINCIPLES

TECHNICAL TRAINING

ESTABLISHING THE TONE


The common trouble in using the voice for the more vigorous or intense
forms of speaking is a contraction or straining of the throat. This
impedes the free flow of voice, causing impaired tone, poor
enunciation, and unhealthy physical conditions. Students should,
therefore, be constantly warned against the least beginnings of this
fault. The earlier indications of it may not be observed, or the nature
of the trouble may not be known, by the untrained speaker. But it ought
to have, from the first, the attention of a skilled teacher, for the
more deep-seated it becomes, the harder is its cure. So very common is
the "throaty" tone and so connected is throat pressure with every other
vocal imperfection, that the avoiding or the correcting of this one
fault demands constant watchfulness in all vigorous vocal work. The way
to avoid the faulty control of voice is, of course, to learn at the
proper time the general principles of what singers call voice
production. These principles are few and, in a sense, are very simple,
but they are not easily made perfectly clear in writing, and a perfect
application of them, even in the simpler forms of speaking, often
requires persistent practice. It will be the aim here to state only
what the student is most likely to understand and profit by, and to
leave the rest to the personal guidance of a teacher.

The control of the voice, so far as it can be a conscious physical
operation, is determined chiefly by the action of the breathing muscles
about the waist and the lower part of the chest. The voice may be said
to have its foundation in this part of the physical man. This
foundation, or center of control, will be rightly established, not by
any very positive physical action; not by a decided raising of the
chest; not by any such marked expansion or contraction as to bring
physical discomfort or rigid muscular conditions. When the breath is
taken in, by an easy, natural expansion, much as air is taken into a
bellows, there is, to a certain degree, a firming of the breathing
muscles; but this muscular tension is felt by the speaker or singer, if
felt at all, simply as a comfortable fullness around, and slightly
above, the waistline, probably more in front than elsewhere. An eminent
teacher of singing tells his pupils to draw the breath into the
stomach. That probably suggests the sensation. When the breath has been
taken in, it is to be gently withheld,--not given up too freely,--and
the tone is formed on the top, so to speak, of this body of breath,
chiefly, of course, in the mouth and head. For the stronger and larger
voice the breath is not driven out and dissipated, but the tone is
intensified and given completer resonance within--within the nasal or
head cavities, somewhat within the pharynx and chest. This body of
breath, easily held in good control, by the lower breathing muscles,
forms what is called the vocal "support." It is a fixed base of
control. It is a fundamental condition, and is to be steadily
maintained in all the varied operations of the voice.

Since this fundamental control of voice is so important, breathing
exercises are often prescribed for regular practice. Such exercises,
when directed by a thoroughly proficient instructor, may be vocally
effective, and beneficial to health. Unwisely practiced, they may be
unfitted to vocal control and of positive physical harm. Moderately
taking the breath at frequent intervals, as a preparation or
reėnforcement for speaking, should become an unconscious habit.
Excessive filling of the lungs or pressing downward upon the abdomen
should be avoided. In general, the hearing of the voice, and an
expressional purpose in making the voice, are the better means of
acquiring good breathing. For the purposes of public speaking, at
least, it is seldom necessary to do much more, in regard to the
breathing, than to instruct a student against going wrong. The speaker
should have a settled feeling of sufficiency; he should hold himself
well together, physically and morally, avoiding nervous agitation and
physical collapse; he should allow the breath freedom rather than put
it under unnatural constraint. Perfect breathing can only be known by
certain qualities in the voice. When it is best, the process is least
observed. The student learns the method of breathing mainly by noting
the result, by rightly hearing his voice. He must, after all, practice
through the hearing.

The discussion of vocal support has brought us to the second main
principle, the government of the throat. The right control of the
voice, by placing a certain degree of tension upon the breathing
muscles, tends to take away all pressure and constraint from the
throat, leaving that passage seemingly open and free, so that the
breath body or column; as some conceive it, seems almost unbroken in
continued speech, much as it is, or should be, in prolonging tone in
singing. The throat is opened in a relaxed rather than a constrained
way, so as to give free play for the involuntary action of the delicate
vocal muscles connected with the larynx, which determine all the finer
variations of voice. Whatever kind of vocal effort is made, the student
should constantly guard himself against the least throat stiffening or
contraction, against what vocalists call a "throat grip." He is very
likely to make some effort with the throat, or vocal muscles, when
putting the voice to any unusual test--when prolonging tone, raising or
lowering the pitch, giving sharp inflections, or striking hard upon
words for emphasis. In these and other vocal efforts the throat muscles
should be left free to do their own work in their own way. The throat
is to be regarded as a way through; the motive power is below the
throat; the place for giving sound or resonance, to voice, for stamping
upon words their form and character, is in the mouth, front and back,
and especially in the head.

The last of the three main considerations, the concentration of tone
where it naturally seems to be formed, is often termed voice "placing,"
or "placement." The possible objection to this term is that it may
suggest a purely artificial or arbitrary treatment or method. Rightly
understood, it is the following of nature. Its value is that it
emphasizes the constancy of this one of the constant factors in voice.
Its result is a certain kind and degree of monotony; without that
particular kind of monotony the voice is faulty. When the tone is
forced out of its proper place, it is dissipated and more or less lost.
A student once told the writer, when complimented on the good placement
of his voice, that he learned this in his summer employment as a public
crier at the door of a show tent. He said he could not possibly have
endured the daily wear upon the voice in any other way. Voices are
heard among teamsters, foremen on the street, and auctioneers, that
conform to this and other principles perfectly. We may say that in such
cases the process of learning is unconscious. In the case of the
untaught student it was conscious, and was exactly what he would have
been instructed to do by a teacher. The point is that many cannot learn
by themselves, and our more unconscious doings are likely to become our
bad habits.

Just what this voice placement is can perhaps be observed simply by
sounding the letter "m," or giving an ordinary hum, as the mother sings
to the child. It is merely finding the natural, instinctive basal form
of the voice, and making all the vowels simply as variations of this
form. The hum is often practiced, with a soft pure quality, by singers.
It is varied by the sound of "ng," as in "rung" or "hung," and the
elemental sound of "l." The practice should always be varied, however,
by a fuller sounding of the rounder vowels, lest the voice become too
much confined or thinned. The speaker, like the singer, must find out
how, by a certain adjustment all along the line from the breathing
center to the point of issue of the breath at the front of the mouth,
he can easily maintain a constant hitting place, to serve as the hammer
head; one singing place for carrying the voice steadily through a
sustained passage; one place where, as it were, the tone is held in
check so it will not break through itself and go to pieces,--a "placing
of the voice," which is to be preserved in every sort of change or play
of tone, whether in one's own character or an assumed character; a
constant focus or a fixed center of resonance, a forming of tone along
the roof of the mouth and well forward in the head, the safeguard and,
practically, the one most effective idea in the government of voice.

And now it should be hastily stated that this excellent idea, like
other good things, may be easily abused. If the tone is pushed forward
or crowded into the head or held tight in its place, in the least
degree, there is a drawing or a cramping in the throat; there is a
"pressing" of the voice. It should be remembered that the constancy of
high placement of tone depends upon the certainty of the tone
foundation; that, after all, the voice must rest upon itself, and must
not sound as if it were up on tip-toe or on stilts; that tone placement
is merely a convenient term for naming a natural condition.

As a final word on this part of the discussion, the student should of
course be impressed with the idea that though these three features of
vocal mechanism have been considered separately, all ideas about voice
are ultimately to become one idea. The voice is to be thought of as
belonging to the whole man, and is to become the spontaneous expression
of his feelings and will; it should not draw attention to any
particular part of the physical man; whatever number of conditions may
be considered, the voice is finally to be one condition, a condition of
normal freedom.

A lack of freedom is indicated in the voice, as in other kinds of
mechanism by some sign of friction--by a harsh tone from a constrained
throat; by a nasal or a muffled tone, from some obstruction in the
nasal passages of the head, either because of abnormal physical
conditions, or because of an unnatural direction of the breath, mainly
due probably to speaking with a closed mouth; by a bound-up, heavy,
"chesty" tone, resulting from a labored method of breathing.

Voice in its freer state should be pure, clear, round, fairly musical,
and fairly deep and rich. Its multitude of expressive qualities had
better be cultivated by the true purpose to express, in the simplest
way, sentiments appropriated to one's self through an understanding and
a comprehensive appreciation of various passages of good literature. As
soon as possible all technique is to be forgotten, unless the
consciousness is pricked by something going wrong.

Voices in general need, in the larger development, to be rounded. The
vowel forms "oo" as in moon, "o" as in roll, and "a" as in saw, greatly
help in giving a rounded form to the general speech; for all vowels can
be molded somewhat into the form of these rounder ones. The vowels "e"
as in meet, "a" as in late, short "e" as in met, short "a" as in sat,
are likely to be made very sharp, thin, and harsh. When a passage for
practice begins with round vowels, as for example, "Roll on, thou deep
and dark blue ocean, roll!" the somewhat rounded form of the lips, and
the opened condition of the throat produced in forming the rounder
vowels, can be to some extent maintained through the whole of the
passage, in forming all the vowels; and this will give, by repeated
practice, a gradually rounded and deepened general character to the
voice. On the other hand the thinner, sharper vowels may serve to give
keenness and point to tones too thick and dull. In applying these
suggestions, as well as all other vocal suggestions, moderation and
good sense must be exercised, for the sake of the good outward
appearance and the good effect of the speaking. The chief vowel forms
running from the deepest to the most shallow are: "oo" as in moon, "o"
as in roll, "a" as in saw, "a" as in far, "a" as in say, "e" as in see.

Since the making of tones means practically the shaping of vowels,
something should here be said about vowel forms. The mouth opening
should of course be freely shaped for the best sounding of the vowels.
For the vowel "a" as in far, the mouth is rather fully opened; for "a"
as in saw, it is opened deep, that is, the mouth passage is somewhat
narrowed, so as to allow increased depth. The vowel "o," as in no, has
two forms, the clear open "o," and the "o" somewhat covered by a closer
form of the lips, Commonly, when the vowel is prolonged, the initial
form, that is the open "o," is held, with the closed form, like "oo" in
moon, touched briefly as the tone is finished. So with long "i" (y), as
in thy, and "ou," as in thou--the first form is like a broad "a" as in
far, with short "i" (sit) ending the "i" (y), and "oo" (moon) ending
the "ou." This final sound, though sometimes accentuated for humorous
effect, is usually not to be made prominent. The sound of "oi," as in
voice, has the main form of "aw" as in saw, and the final form in short
"i," as in pin. The vowel "u" is sounded like "oo" (moon) in a few
words, as in rule, truth. Generally, it sounds about like "ew" in new
or mew. In some of the forms the front of the mouth will be open, in
some half open, and in some, as in the case of long "e" (meet), nearly
closed. Whatever the degree of opening, the jaw should never be allowed
to become stiffly set, nor the tongue nor lips to be held tight, in any
degree or way. These faults cause a tightening in the throat, and
affect the character of the tone. It will generally be advantage to the
tone if the lips are trained to be very slightly protruding, in bell
shape, and if the corners of the mouth be not allowed to droop, but be
made very slightly to curve upward. The tongue takes of course various
positions for different vowels. For our purposes, it may be sufficient
to say that it will play its part best if it be not stiffened but is
left quite free and elastic, perhaps quite relaxed, and if the tip of
it be made to play easily down behind the lower teeth.

Since voice has here been discussed in an objective sort of way, it is
fitting to emphasize the importance of what is called naturalness, or
more correctly, simplicity. Everybody desires this sort of result. It
can readily be seen, however, that about everything we do is a second
nature; is done, that is to say, in the acquired, acceptable,
conventional way. Voice and speech are largely determined by
surrounding influences, and what we come to regard as natural may be
only an acquired bad habit, which is, in fact, quite unnatural. Voice
should certainly be what we call human. Better it should have some
human faults than be smoothed out into negative perfection, without the
true ring, the spunk of individuality. There is, nevertheless, a best
naturalness, or second nature, and a worst. The object of training is
to find the best.

In this discussion of voice some of the ideas often applied to the
first steps in the cultivation of singing have been presented, as those
most effective also for training in speech. Although, on the surface,
singing and speaking are quite different, fundamentally they are the
same. Almost all persons have, if they will use it, an ear for musical
pitch and tone, and the neglect to cultivate, in early life, the
musical hearing and the singing tone is a mistake. To prospective
public speakers it is something like a misfortune. The best speakers
have had voices that sang in their speaking. This applies distinctly to
the speaking, for example, of Wendell Phillips, who is commonly called
the most colloquial of our public speakers. It has often been commented
on in the case of Gladstone, and applies peculiarly to some of our
present-day speakers, who would be called, not orators, but impressive
talkers. The meaning is, not of course that speaking should sound like
singing, or necessarily like oratory, but that to the trained ear the
best speaking has fundamentally the singing conditions, and the voice
has singing qualities; and the elementary exercises designed for
singing are excellent, in their simpler forms and methods, for the
speaking voice.  In carrying out this idea in voice training, the
selections here given for the earliest exercises, are such as naturally
call for some slight approach to the singing tone. Some are in the
spirit and style of song or hymn; others are in the form of address to
distant auditors, wherein the reciter would call to a distance, or
"sing out," as we say. This kind of speaking is a way of quickly
"bringing out" the voice. Young students especially are very apt in
this, getting the idea at once, though needing, as a rule, special
cautions and guidance for keeping the proper vocal conditions, so as to
prevent "forcing." The passages are simple in spirit and form. They
carry on one dominant feeling, needing little variation of voice. The
idea is to render them in a way near to the monotone, that the student
may learn to control one tone, so to speak, or to speak nearly in one
key, before doing the more varied tones of familiar speech or of
complex feeling. We might say the passages are to be read in some
degree like the chant; but the chant is likely to bring an excess of
head resonance and is too mechanical. The true spirit of the selections
is to be given, from the first, but reduced to its very simplest form.
Difficulties arise, in this first step, in the case of two classes of
student: those who lack sentiment or imagination, or at least the
faculty of vocally expressing it, and those with an excess of feeling.
The former class have to be mentally awakened; for some motive element,
aesthetic appreciation or imaginative purpose, should play a part, as
has been said, even in technical vocal training. The latter class must
be restrained. Excessive emotion either chokes off expression, or runs
away with itself. Calmness, evenness, poise, the easy control that
comes from a degree of relaxation, without loss of buoyancy,--these are
the conditions for good accomplishment of any kind. This self-mastery
the high-strung, ardent spirit must learn, in order to become really
strong. This is accomplished, in the case of a nervous temperament, not
by tightening up and trying hard, but by relaxing, by letting down. In
the use of these passages the voice will be set at first slightly high
in pitch, in order to help in keeping a continuous sounding of tone
against the roof of the mouth and to a proper degree in the head. This
average pitch, or key, or at least the character of the tone, will be
maintained without much change, and with special care that the tone be
kept up in its place at the ends of lines or sentences, and be kept
well fixed on its breath foundation. The simpler inflections indicating
the plain meaning, will of course be observed, the tone will be kept
easily supported by the frequently recovered breath that is under it.
The back of the mouth will seem to be constantly somewhat open. There
will be no attempt at special power, but only a free, mellow, flowing
tone of moderate strength. In the exercise each voice will be treated,
in detail, according to its particular needs, and in each teacher's own
way.

At the time of student life, when physical conditions are not matured,
the counsel should repeatedly be given, not only that the voice, though
used often and regularly, should be used moderately, but also that the
voice should be kept youthful--youthful, if it can be, even in age--but
especially in youth, whatever the kind of literature used for practice.
Also youth should be counseled not to try to make a voice like the
voice of some one else, some speaker, or actor, or teacher. It will be
much the best if it is just the student's own.


VOCAL FLEXIBILITY


In the earliest exercises here given the tone will be, for the best and
most immediate effect, kept running on somewhat in a straight line, so
to speak; will have a certain sameness of sound; will be perhaps
somewhat monotonous, because kept pretty much in one key, or in one
average degree of pitch. It will perhaps be necessary to make the
utterance for the time somewhat artificial. The voice is in the
artificial stage, as is the work of an oarsman, for example, in
learning the parts of the stroke, or that of a golfer in learning the
"swing," although in the case of some students, when the vocal
conditions are good and the tone is well balanced, very little of the
artificial process is necessary. In that case the voice simply needs,
in its present general form, to be developed.

The next step in the training is to try a more varied use of the voice,
without a loss of what has been acquired as to formation of tone. The
student is to make himself able to slide the voice up and down in
pitch, by what is called inflection, to raise or lower the pitch by
varied intervals, momentarily to enlarge or diminish the tone, in
expressive ways; in short, to adapt the improved tone, the more
effective method of voice control, to more varied speech. In the early
practice for getting tone variation, the student must guard most
carefully against "forcing." Additional difficulties arise when we have
vocal changes, and moderate effort, in the degree of the change, is
best. In running the tone up, one should let the voice take its own
way. The tone should not be pushed or held by any slightest effort at
the throat. The control should, as has been said, be far below the
throat. In running an inflection from low to high, the tone may be
allowed, especially in the earlier practice, to thin out at the top.
And always when the pitch is high the tone should be smaller, as it is
on a musical instrument, though it should have a consistent depth and
dignity from its proper degree of connection with the chest. This
consistent character in the upper voice is attained by giving the tone
a bit of pomp or nobleness of quality. In taking a low pitch there is,
among novices, always a tendency to bear down on the tone in order to
gain strength or to give weight to utterance. The voice is thus crowded
into, or on, the throat. The voice should never be pushed down or
pressed back in the low pitch. This practice leads to raggedness of
tone, and finally to virtual loss of the lower voice. The voice should
fall of itself with only that degree of force which is legitimately
given by the breath tension, produced easily, though firmly, by the
breathing muscles. Breadth will be given to the tone by some degree of
expansion at the back of the mouth, or in the pharynx. As soon as can
be, the speech should be brought down to the utmost of simplicity and
naturalness, so that the thought of literature can be expressed with
reality and truth; can be made to sound exactly as if it came as an
unstudied, spontaneous expression of the student's own mind, and yet so
it can be heard, so it will be adequate, so it will be pleasing in
sound. The improved tone is to become the student's inevitable,
everyday voice.


THE FORMATION OF WORDS


The term enunciation means the formation of words, including right
vocal shape to the vowels and right form to the consonants.
Pronunciation is scholastic, relating to the word accent and the vowel
sound. Authority for this is in the dictionary. Enunciation, belonging
to elocution, is the act of forming those authorized sounds into
finished speech.

There is a common error regarding enunciation. It is usual, if a
speaker is not easily understood, to say that he should "articulate"
more clearly; that is, make the consonants more pronounced, and young
students are thus often urged into wrongly directed effort with the
tongue and lips. Sometimes in books, articulation "stunts," in the form
of nonsense alliterations, are prescribed, by which all the vowels are
likely to be chewed into consonants. The result is usually an
overexertion, and a consequent tightening, of the articulating muscles.
At first, and for a time, it may appear that this forcing of the
articulation brings the desired result of clearer speech, but it will,
in the end, be destructive to voice and bring incoherent utterance.
Articulation exercises too difficult for the master, should not be
given to the novice. All teachers of singing train voices, at first, on
the vowel, and it should be known that, without right vowel, or tone,
formation, efforts at good articulation are futile. Every technical
vocal fault must be referred back to the fundamental condition of right
formation of tone, that is, the vowel. Sputtering, hissing, biting,
snapping, of consonants is not enunciation. The student should learn
how without constraint, to prolong vowels; learn, if you please, the
fundamentals of singing, and articulation, the formation of consonants,
the jointing of syllables, will become easy. The reason for this is
that when the vowel tone is rightly produced, all the vocal muscles are
freed; the tongue, lips, and jaw act without constraint.

The principle of rhythm simplifies greatly the problem of enunciation.
It is easier, not only to make good tone, but also to speak words, in
the reading of verse than of prose. It is much easier to read a
rhythmical piece of prose than one lacking in rhythm. All prose, then,
should be rendered with as much rhythmical flow as is allowed
consistently with its spirit and meaning. Care must be taken of course
that no singsong effect occurs; that the exact meaning receives first
attention. In case of long, hard words, ease is attained by making a
slight pause before the word or before its preposition or article or
other closely attached word, and by giving a strong beat to its
accented syllable or syllables, with little effort on the subordinate
syllables.

The particular weakness among Americans, in the speaking of words, is
failure adequately to form the nasal, or head, sounds. The letters "l,"
"m," "n," are called vowel consonants. They can be given continuous
sound, a head resonance. This sounding may be carried to a fault, or
affectation; but commonly it is insufficiently done, and it should be
among the first objects of cultivation in vocal practice. The humming
of these head sounds, with very moderate force, is excellent for
developing and clearing this resonance. The "ng" sound, as in rung, may
be added.

Improper division of words into syllables is a common fault. The word
"constitution," for example, is made "cons-titution," instead of "con-
stitution;" "prin-ciple" is pronounced "prints-iple." A clean, correct
formation should be made by slightly holding, and completing the
accented syllable. The little word "also" is often called "als-o" or
"als-so" or "alt-so"; chrysanthemum is pronounced "chrysant-themum";
coun-try is called "country," band so forth. In the case of doubled
consonants, as in the word "mellow," "commemorate," "bubble," and the
like, a momentary holding of the first consonant, so that a bit of
separate impulse is given to the second, makes more perfect speaking.
There is a slight difference between "mel-low" and "mel-ow," "bub-ble"
and "bub-le," "com-memorate" and "com-emorate." These finer
distinctions, if one cares to make speech accurate and refined, can be
observed in words ending in "ence" and "ance" as in "guidance" and
"credence"; in words with the ending "al," "el," or "le," as in
"general," "principal," "final," "vessel," "rebel," "principle," and
"little." If that troublesome word "separate" were from the beginning
rightly pronounced, it would probably be less often wrongly spelled.
One should hasten to say, however, that over-nicety in enunciation,
pedantic exactness, obtrusive "elocutionary" excellence, or any sort of
labored or affected effort should be carefully guarded against. The
line of distinction between what is perfect and what is slightly
strained is a fine one. Very often, for example, one hears such endings
as "or" in "creator," "ed" in "dedicated," "ess" in "readiness," "men"
in "gentlemen," pronounced with incorrect prominence. These syllables,
being very subordinate, should not be made to stand out with undue
distinctness, and though the vowels should not be distorted into a
wrong form, they should be obscured. In "gentlemen," for example, the
"e" is, according to the dictionary, an "obscure" vowel, and the word
is pronounced almost as "gentlem'n,"--not "gentle_mun_," of course,
but not "gentlem_e_n." The fault in such forms is more easily
avoided by throwing a sharp accent on the accented syllable,
letting the other syllables fall easily out. The expression of
greeting, "Ladies and gentlemen," should have a strong accent on each
first syllable of the two important words, with little prominence given
to other syllables or the connecting word; as, "La'dies 'nd
gen'tlem'n."

In the same class of errors is that of making an extra syllable in such
words as "even," "seven," "heaven," "eleven," and "given," where
properly the "e" is elided, leaving "ev'n," "heav'n," and so forth. The
mouth should remain closed when the first syllable is pronounced; the
"n" is then simply sounded in the head. The same treatment should be
given to such words as "chasm" and "enthusiasm." If the mouth is opened
after the first part of the word is sounded, we have "chas-_u_m,"
"enthusias-_u_m." The little words "and," "as," "at" and the like
should, of course, when not emphatic, be very lightly touched, with the
vowel hardly formed, and the mouth only slightly opened. The word "and"
is best sounded, where not emphatic, with light touch, slight opening
of the mouth, and hardly any forming of the vowel; almost like "'nd."
These words should be connected closely with the word which follows, as
if they were a subordinate syllable of that word.

Often we hear such words as "country," "city," and their plurals,
pronounced "countree," "citee," and "citees"; "ladies" is called
"ladees." The sound should properly be that of short "i" not of long
"e." The vowel sound, short "a," as in "cast," "fast," "can't," must be
treated as a localism, and yet it is hardly necessary to adhere to any
decided extreme because of local associations. Vocally, the very narrow
sound of short "a," called "Western," is impossible. It can't be sung;
in speech it is usually dry and harsh. As a matter of taste the very
broad sound of the short "a," when it is made like "a" in "far," is
objectionable because it is extraordinary. There is a form between
these extremes, the correct short "a"; this ought to be acceptable
anywhere. It is suggestive to observe that localisms are less
pronounced among artists than among untrained persons. Trained singers
and actors belonging to different countries or sections of country,
show few differences among themselves in English pronunciation. Among
localisms the letter "r" causes frequent comment. In singing and
dramatic speaking, this letter is best formed at the tip of the tongue.
In common speech it may be made only by a very slight movement at the
back of the tongue. A decided throaty "burr" should always be avoided.
In the case of vigorous dramatic utterance, the "r" may be quite
decidedly rolled, on the principle that, in such cases, all consonants
become a means of effectiveness in expression. In the expression of
fine, delicate, or tender sentiment, all consonants should be lightly
touched or should be obscured. Enumeration of the many kinds of
carelessness of speech would be to little purpose. Scholarly speech
requires a knowledge of correct forms, gained from the dictionary, and
vocal care and skill in making these forms clear, smooth, and finished
in sound.

This discussion has perhaps suggested the extreme of accuracy in
speech. But as has already been said, any degree of overnicety, of
pedantic elegance, of stilted correctness, is especially irritating to
a sensitive ear. Excessive biting off of syllables, flipping of the
tongue, showing of the teeth, twisting of the lips, is carrying
excellence to a fault. The inactive jaw, tongue, and lips must be made
mobile, and in the working away of clumsiness and slovenliness of
speech, some degree of stiltedness must perhaps, for a time, be in
evidence, but matured practice ought finally to result, not only in
accuracy and finish, but in simplicity and ease in speaking.


MAKING THE POINT


When the student has made a fair degree of progress in the more
strictly mechanical features of speech, the formation of tone, and the
delivery of words, he is ready to give himself up more fully to the
effective expression of thought. Of first importance to the speaker, as
it is to the writer, is the way to make himself clear as to his
meaning. The question has to be put again and again to the young
speaker, What is your point? What is the point in the sentence? What is
the point in some larger division of the speech? What is the point, or
purpose, of the speech as a whole? This point, or the meaning of what
is said, should be so put, should be so clear, that no effort is
required of a listener for readily apprehending and appreciating it.
Discussing now only the question of delivery, we say that the making of
a point depends mainly upon what we commonly call emphasis. Extending
the meaning of emphasis beyond the limit of mere stress, or weight, of
voice, we may define it as special distinctness or impressiveness of
effect. In the case of a sentence there is often one place where the
meaning is chiefly concentrated; often the emphasis is laid sharply
upon two or more points or words in the sentence; sometimes it is put
increasingly on immediately succeeding words, called a climax, and
sometimes the stress of utterance seems to be almost equally
distributed through all the principal words of the sentence.

The particular point of a sentence is determined, not so much by what
the sentence says as it stands by itself, as by its relation to what
goes before or what follows after. The first thing, then, for the
student to do is to become sure of the precise meaning of the sentence,
with reference to the general context. Then he must know whether or not
he says, for the understanding of others, exactly what is meant. The
means of giving special point to a statement is in some way to set
apart, or to make prominent, the word or words of special significance.
There are several ways in which this is done. Commonly a stress or
added weight of voice is put upon the word; generally, too, there is an
inflection, a turning of the tone downward or upward; there is
frequently a lengthening out of the vowel sound, and a sudden stop
after, in some cases before, the word. Any or all these special
noticeable vocal effects serve to draw attention to the word and give
it expressive significance. These effects are everywhere common in good
everyday speech. In the formal art of speaking, they have to be more or
less thought out and consciously practiced.

Emphasis is determined by the comparative importance of ideas. An idea
is important when, being the first to arise in the mind, it becomes the
motive for utterance. We see an object, the idea of high or broad or
beautiful arises in the mind; we so form a sentence as to make that
idea stand forth; this idea, or the word expressing it, becomes vocally
emphatic. In this sentence, "He has done it in a way to impress upon
the Filipinos, so far as action and language can do it, his desire, and
the desire of our people, _to do them good_," the idea "to do them
good" is the one that arose first in the mind of the speaker and called
up the other ideas that served to set this one prominently forth. It is
the emphatic idea. It should be carried in the mind of the student
speaker from the beginning of the sentence. Again, an idea is important
when it arises as closely related to the first, and becomes the chief
means of giving utterance concerning the first. This second idea may be
something said about the first; it may be compared or contrasted with
the first. Being matched against the first, it may become of equal
significance with it. "Who is here so _base_ that would be a
_bondman_?" Here the idea "base" is used to emphasize the quality
of "bondman," and becomes equally emphatic with that idea. Other ideas,
or other words expressing them, being formed around these principal
ones, will be subordinated or more loosely run over, since they simply
serve as the setting for the principal ones, or the connecting links,
holding them together. Sometimes an idea arising in the mind grows in
intensity, asserting itself by stronger and stronger successive words.
For example, "He _mocks_ and _taunts_ her, he _disowns, insults_ and
_flouts_ her"; and, "I impeach him in the name of human nature itself,
which he has cruelly _outraged, injured_, and _oppressed_, in both
sexes in every _age, rank, situation_, and _condition of life_." The
impressiveness in delivering these successive words is increased not
because they are in the form of a climax, but they are in the form of a
climax because the thought is so insistent as to require new words for
its expression. The student will be true and sure in his emphasis only
when he takes ideas into his mind in the natural way; that is, he
should seize upon the central idea before he gives utterance to any
part of a statement. If that idea is constantly carried foremost in the
mind, he will then, in due time, give it its true emphasis. So, in the
case of a climax, he must realize the spirit and force behind the
utterance, and not depend upon any mechanical process of merely
increasing the strength of his tones.

Sometimes emphasis must be made to stand so strong as not merely to
arrest the movement of thought, and fix the mind of the hearer upon a
point, but to turn the attention of the hearer for the moment aside; to
draw his mind to the thought of something very remote in time or place
or relation, as in the case of making momentary reference to some
historic fact or some well-known expression of literature. Allusions
and illustrations, then, should be given, not only with color but also
with special emphasis. Byron, contemplating the ruins of Rome, calls
her "the _Niobe_ of nations." The hearer's mind should be arrested, his
imagination stirred, at that word. Words used in contrast with one
another are given opposing effect by contrasting emphasis: "Not that I
loved _Cęsar_ less, but that I loved _Rome more_." "My _words fly up_;
my _thoughts remain below_." When words are used with a double meaning,
as in the case of a pun, or with a peculiar implication, or are
repeated for some peculiar effect of mere repetition,--when we have, in
any form, what is called a play upon words,--a peculiar pointedness is
given, wherein the circumflex inflection plays a large part. "Now is it
_Rome_ indeed and _room_ enough, when there is in it but one only man."
"I had rather _bear with_ you than _bear_ you; yet if I did bear you, I
should bear no _cross_, for I think you have no _money_ in your purse."
"But, sir, the _Coalition_! The _Coalition_! Aye, the _murdered
Coalition_!"

Although, as has been said, the usual method of making a point is to
give striking force to an idea, very often the same effect, or a better
effect, is produced by a striking sudden suppression of utterance, by
way of decided contrast. When the discourse has been running vigorously
and inflections have been repeatedly sharp and strong, the sudden stop,
and the stilled utterance of a word, are most effective. Only, the
suppressed word must be set apart. There must be the pause before or
after, or both before and after. Robert Ingersoll, when speaking with
great animation, would often suddenly stop and ask a question in the
quietest and most intimate way. This gave point to the question and was
impressive.

We have been considering thus far only primary or principal emphasis.
Of equal importance is the question of secondary emphasis. The
difference in vocal treatment comes in regarding the principal emphasis
as absolute or final, as making the word absolved from, cut off from,
the rest of the sentence following, and having a final stop or
conclusive effect, while the secondary may be regarded as only
relatively emphatic, as being related in a subordinate way to the
principal, and as maintaining a connection with the rest of the
sentence, or as hanging upon the words which follow, or as being a step
leading up to the main idea. The vocal indication of this connective
principle is the circumflex inflection. The tone will be raised, as in
the principal emphasis, but instead of being allowed to fall straight
to a finality, it is turned upward at the finish, to hook on, as it
were, to the following. The weight of voice will be less marked, the
inflection less long, and the pause usually less decided, than in the
case of the primary emphasis. "Recall _romance_, recite the names
of heroes of legend and _song_, but there is none that is his
peer." At the words romance and song there is a secondary emphasis; the
voice is not dropped, it is kept suspended with the pause.

A common failing among students is an inability to avoid a frequent
absolute emphatic inflection when it is not in place. Many are unable
steadily to sustain a sentence till the real point is reached. They
fail to keep the voice suspended when they make a pause. It is very
important that a student should have a sure method of determining what
the principal emphasis is. He should, as has already been said, follow,
in rendering the thought of another, the method of the spontaneous
expression of his own ideas. He should take into his mind the principal
idea or ideas, before he speaks the words leading thereto. He should
then, at every pause, keep the thought suspended, incomplete, till he
reaches that principal idea; he should then make the absolute stop,
with the effect of finality, afterwards running off in a properly
related way, such words as serve to complete the form of expression.
Take the following sentence: "I never take up a paper full of Congress
squabbles, reported as if sunrise depended upon them, without thinking
of that idle English nobleman at Florence, who when his brother, just
arrived from London, happened to mention the House of Commons,
languidly asked, Ah! is that thing still going?" It is rather curious
that very rarely will a student keep the thought of such a sentence
suspended and connected until he arrives at the real point at the end.
He will first say that he never takes up a paper, though of course he
really does take up a paper. Then he says he never takes up this kind
of paper; and this he does not mean. So he goes on misleading his
audience, instead of helping them properly to anticipate the form of
statement and so be prepared for the point at the right moment. He
should not, as a general rule, let his voice take an absolute drop at
the places of secondary emphasis.

In reference to the emphatic point in a larger division of the speech,
and to the main or climactic points of the whole speech, the principles
for emphasis in the sentence are applied in a larger way. And the way
to make the point is, first of all, to think hard on what that point
is, what is the end or purpose to be attained. If this does not bring
the result--and very often it does not--then the mechanical means of
producing emphasis should be studied and consciously applied--the
increase, or perhaps the diminution, of force, the lengthening or
shortening of tones on the words; a change in the general level of
pitch; the use of the emphatic pause; and a lengthening of the emphatic
inflection. A more impressive general effect must, in some way, be
given to the parts of greater importance.


INDICATING VALUES AND RELATIONS


Perhaps the most commonly criticized fault among beginners in speaking
is that of monotony. Monotony that arises from lack of inflection of
voice or from lack of pointed-ness or emphasis in a sentence, will
presumably be corrected in the earlier exercises. The monotony that is
caused by giving to all sentences an equal value, saying all sentences,
or a whole speech, in about the same force, rate, and general pitch, is
one that may be considered from another point of view. One fault in the
delivery of sentences--perhaps the most frequent one--is that of
running them all off in about the same modulation. By modulation we
mean the wavelike rise and fall of the voice that always occurs in some
degree in speech,--sometimes called melody--and the change of key, or
general pitch, in passing from one sentence, or part of a speech, to
another. Frequently, novices in speaking and in reading, will swing the
voice upward in the first part of every sentence, give it perhaps
another rise or two as the sentence proceeds, and swing it down, always
in precisely the same way, at the end. The effect of this regular
rising at the beginning, and this giving of a similar concluding
cadence at the end, is to make it appear that each sentence stands
quite independent of the others, that each is a detached statement; and
when, besides, each sentence is given with about the same force and
rate of speed, they all seem to be of about equal importance, all
principal or none principal, but as much alike as Rosalind's halfpence.
Sentences that have a close sequence as to thought should be so
rendered that one seems to flow out from the other, without the regular
marked rise at the beginning or the concluding cadence at the end.
Sentences, and parts of sentences, which are of less importance than
others with which they are associated, should be made less prominent in
delivery. Often students are helped by the suggestion that a sentence,
or a part of a sentence, or a group of sentences, it may be, be dropped
into an undertone, or said as an aside, or rapidly passed over, or in
some way put in the background--said, so to speak, parenthetically.
Other portions of the speech, or the sentence, the important ones,
should, on the same principle, be made to stand out with marked effect.

Notice, in the following quotation, how the first and the last parts
arc held together by the pitch or key and the modulation of the voice,
and the middle part, the group of examples, is held together in a
different key by being set in the background, as being illustrative or
probative. "Why, all these Irish bulls are Greek,--every one of them.
Take the Irishman carrying around a brick as a specimen of the house he
had to sell; take the Irishman who shut his eyes, and looked into the
glass to see how he would look when he was dead; take the Irishman that
bought a crow, alleging that crows were reported to live two hundred
years, and he meant to set out and try it. Well, those are all Greek. A
score or more of them, of the parallel character, come from Athens."

The speaker should cultivate a quick sensitiveness as to close unity
and slight diversity, as to what is principal and what is subordinate,
as to what is in the direct, main line of thought, and what is by the
way, casual, or merely a connecting link. This sense of proportion, of
close or remote relation, of directness and indirectness, the feeling
for perspective, so-called, can be acquired only by continued practice,
for sharpening the faculty of apprehension and appreciation. It is
usually the last attainment in the student's work, but the neglect of
it may result in a confirmed habit of monotony. The term transition is
commonly used to denote a passing from one to another of the main
divisions of the discourse. The making of this transition, though often
neglected, is not difficult. The finishing of one part and the making
of a new beginning on the next, usually with some change of standing
position, as well as of voice, has an obvious method. The slighter
transition, or variation, within a main division, and the avoidance of
the slight transition where none should be made, require the keener,
quicker insight.

Sentences will have many other kinds of variation in delivery according
to the nature and value of the thought. Some will flow on with high
successive waves; some will be run almost straight on as in a monotone.
Some will be on a higher average tone, or in a higher key; others will
be lower. Some will have lengthened vowel sound, and will be more
continuous or sustained, so that groups of successive words seem to run
on one unbroken tone; others will be abrupt and irregular. Some will be
rapid, some slow; some light, others weighty; some affected by long
pauses, others by no pause, and some will be done in a dry, matter-of-
fact, or precise, or commonplace, or familiar manner, others will be
touched with feeling, colored by imagination, glowing with persuasive
warmth, elevated, dignified, or profound. A repetition of the
selections to be learned, with full expression by voice and action,
repetition again, and again, and again, until the sentiment of them
becomes a living reality to the speaker, is the only way to acquire the
ability to indicate to others the true proportions, the relative
values, and the distinctive character, of what is to be said.


EXPRESSING THE FEELING


We are in the habit of distinguishing between what proceeds from mere
thinking, what is, as we say, purely intellectual, and what arises more
especially from feeling, what we call emotional. We mean, of course,
that one or the other element predominates; and the distinction is a
convenient one. The subject, the occasion, to a great extent the man,
determine whether a speech is in the main dispassionate or impassioned,
whether it is plain or ornate in statement, whether it is urgent or
aggressive, or calm and rather impassive. It would be beyond our
purpose to consider many of the variations and complexities of feeling
that enter into vocal expression. We call attention to only a few of
the simpler and more common vocal manifestations of feeling,
counselling the student who is to deliver a selected speech, to adapt
his speaking to the style of that speech. In so doing he will get a
varied training, and at length will find his own most effective style.

The speech which is matter-of-fact and commonplace only, has
characteristically much short, sharp inflection of voice, with the
rapidly varying intervals of pitch that we notice in one's everyday
talking. As the utterance takes on force, it is likely to go in a more
direct line of average pitch, with stronger inflection on specially
emphatic words. As it rises to sentiment, the inflections are less
marked, and in the case of a strain of high, nobler feeling, the voice
moves on with some approach to the monotone. According as feeling is
stronger and firmer, as in the expression of courage, determination,
firm resolve, resistance, intense devotion, the voice is kept
sustained, with pauses rather abrupt and decisive; if the feeling,
though of high sentiment, is tranquil, without aggressiveness, the
voice has more of the wavelike rise and fall, and at the pausing places
the tone is gradually diminished, rather than abruptly broken off. In
the case of quickly impulsive, passionate feeling, the speech is likely
to be much varied in pitch, broken by frequent abrupt stops, and
decisive inflections. In the case of the expression of tenderness or
pathos, there is a lingering tone, with the quality and inflection of
plaintiveness, qualified, in public speech, by such dignity and
strength as is fitting. In all cases the quality of voice is of course
the main thing, and this, not being technical or mechanical, must
depend on the speaker's entering into the spirit of the piece and
giving color, warmth, and depth to his tones. The spirit of gladness or
triumph has usually the higher, brighter, ringing tone; that of
gravity, solemnity, awe, the lower, darker, and less varied tone.

In the case of the expression of irony, sarcasm, scorn, contempt, and
kindred feelings, the circumflex inflection is the principal feature.
This is the curious quirk or double turn in the voice, that is heard
when one says, for example, "You're a _fine_ fellow," meaning,
"You are anything but a fine fellow." In the earlier part of Webster's
reply to Hayne are some of the finest examples of irony, grim or
caustic humor, sarcasm, and lofty contempt. They need significant turns
and plays of voice, but are often spoiled by being treated as high
declamation.

In the expression of the various kinds and degrees of feeling there may
be a fully expressed force or a suppressed or restrained force. Often
the latter is the more natural and effective. This is intense, but not
loud, though at times it may break through its restraint. It is most
fitting when the hearers are near at hand, as in the case of a jury or
judge in court, when the din of loudness would offend.

The climax is a gradually increasing expression of feeling. It may be
by a gradual raising of the voice in pitch; it may be by any sort of
increasing effectiveness or moving power. It is rather difficult to
manage, and may lead to some strained effort. The speaker should keep a
steady, controlled movement, without too much haste, but rather a
retarded and broadened utterance as the emphatic point is approached;
and always the speaker should keep well within his powers, maintaining
always some vocal reserve.

The practice of emotional expression gives warmth, mellowness, sympathy
and expansiveness to the voice, and must have considerable cultural
value.


SHOWING THE PICTURE


A difficult attainment in speaking is that of vividness. The student
may see the picture in his own mind's eye, but his mode of expression
does not reveal the fact to others. Imagination in writing he may have,
with no suggestion of it in the voice. Too often it is erroneously
taken for granted that the human voice, because it is human, will at
any call, respond to all promptings of the mind. It will no more do so,
of course, than the hand or the eye. It must be trained. Often it is a
case not merely of vocal response, but of mental awakening as well, and
in that case the student must, if he can, learn to see visions and
dream dreams.

A way to begin the suiting of speech to imaginative ideas is to
imitate; to make the voice sound like the thing to be suggested. Some
things are fast, some slow, some heavy, some light, some dark and
dismal, some bright and joyous; some things are noisy, some still; some
rattle, others roar; the sea is hoarse; the waves wash; the winds blow;
the ocean is level, or it dashes high and breaks; happy things sing,
and sad things mourn. All life and nature speak just as we speak. How
easy it ought to be for us to speak just as nature speaks. And when our
abstract notions are put in concrete expression, or presented as a
picture, how easy it would seem, by these simple variations of voice,
to speak the language of that picture, telling the length, breadth,
action, color, values, spirit of it. That it is a task makes it worth
while. It affords infinite variety, and endless delight.

One necessary element in so-called word-painting is that of time. When
a speaker expresses himself in pictures for the imagination he must
give his hearers time to see these pictures, and to sufficiently see
and appreciate the parts, or lines of them, and the significance of
them. It is a common fault to hasten over the language of imagination
as over the commonplace words. The speaker or reader had better be sure
to see the image himself before, and indeed after, he speaks it. Others
will then be with him. Although among most young speakers the tone of
imagination is lacking, yet often young persons who become proficient
vocally are fain greatly to overdo it, till the sound that is suited to
the sense becomes sound for its own sake, and thereby obscures the
sense. Regard for proportion and fitness, in relation to the central
idea or purpose, should control the feeling for color in the detail.


EXPRESSION BY ACTION


It should always be borne in mind that gesture means the bearing or the
action of the whole man. It does not mean simply movement of the arm
and hand. The practice of gesture should be governed by this
understanding of the term. A thought, an emotion, something that moves
the man from within, will cause a change, it may be slight, or it may
be very marked, in eye, face, body. This is gesture. This change or
movement may, from the strength of the feeling that prompts it, extend
to the arm and hand. But this latter movement, in arm and hand, is only
the fuller manifestation of one's thought or feeling--the completion of
the gesture, not the gesture itself. Arm movement, when not preceded or
supplemented by body movement, or body pose, is obtrusive action; it
brings a member of the body into noticeable prominence, attracting the
auditor's eye and taking his mind from the speaker's thought. Better
have no gesture than gesture of this kind. The student, then, should
first learn to appreciate the force of ideas, to see and feel the full
significance of what he would say, and indicate by some general
movement of body and expression of face, the changing moods of mind.
Then the arm and hand may come--in not too conspicuous a way--to the
aid of the body. When Wendell Phillips pointed to the portraits in
Faneuil Hall and exclaimed: "I thought those pictured lips would have
broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American,--the slanderer of
the dead," it was not, we may be sure, the uplifted arm alone, but the
pose of the man, the something about his whole being, which bespoke the
spirit within him, and which was really the gesture. In less positive
or striking degrees of action, the body movement will, of course, be
very slight, at times almost imperceptible, but the principle always
holds, and should be from the first taught. In gesture, the bodily man
acts as a unit.

The amount of gesture is, of course, determined by the temperament of
the speaker, the nature of the speech, the character of the audience,
and the occasion of the address. One speaker will, under certain
conditions, gesticulate nearly all the time; another will, under the
same conditions, seem seldom to move in any way. The two may be equally
effective. A speech that is charged with lively emotion will usually be
accompanied by action; a speech expressive of the profound feeling that
subdues to gravity, or resignation, would be comparatively without
action. The funeral oration by Mark Antony is full of action because it
is really intended to excite the will of his audience; in a funeral
address simply expressive of sorrow and appreciation, gesture would, as
a rule, be out of place. A sharply contested debate may need action
that punctuates and enforces; the pleasantry of after-dinner talk may
need only the voice. So, one audience, not quick in grasping ideas, may
need, both in language and action, much clear, sharp indication of the
point by illustration, much stirring up by physical attack, so to
speak, while another audience would be displeased by this unnecessary
effort to be clear and expressive. Yet again, given a certain speaker
and a certain subject and a certain audience, it is obvious that the
occasion will determine largely how the speaker will bear himself. The
atmosphere of a college commencement will be different from that of a
barbecue, and the speaker would, within the limits set by his own
personality and his own dignity, adapt himself to the one or the other.
The general law of appropriateness and good taste must determine the
amount of gesture.

For the purposes of this work there is probably very little, if any,
value in a strict classification of gestures. It may, at times, be
convenient to speak of one gesture as merely for emphasis, of another
as indicating location, of another as giving illustration, of one as
more subjective, expressing a thought that reflects back upon the
speaker, or is said more in the way of self-communion, of another as
objective, concerned only with outer objects or with ideas more apart
from the person or the inward feeling of the speaker. But it can easily
be shown that one idea, or one dominant feeling, may be expressed by
many kinds of action, in fact, so far at least as prescribed movements
are concerned, in directly opposite kinds, and gesture is so largely a
matter of the individual, and is governed so much by mixed motive and
varying circumstance, that the general public speaker will profit
little by searching for its philosophic basis, and trying to practice
according to any elaborated system. The observing of life, with the
exercise of instinct, taste, sense, above all of honest purpose--these,
with of course the help of competent criticism, will serve as
sufficient practical guides in the cultivation of expressive action.

Some observations, or perhaps general principles, may be offered as
helpful. When a speaker is concerned with driving ideas straight home
to his audience, as in putting bare fact in a debate, his action will
be more direct; it will move in straighter lines and be turned, like
his thought, more directly upon his audience. As his statement is more
exactly to a point, so his gesture becomes more pointed and definite.
When the speaker is not talking to or at his audience, to move them to
his will, but is rather voicing the ideas and feelings already
possessed by them, and is in a non-aggressive mood, he is likely to use
less of the direct and emphasis-giving gesture, and to employ
principally the gesture that is merely illustrative of his ideas, more
reposeful, less direct, less tense.

To consider more in detail the principle that the man, and not the arm,
is the gesture, a man should look what he is to speak. The eye should
always have a relation to gesture. The look may be in the direction of
the arm movement or in another direction. No practical rule can be
given. It can only be said that the eye must play its part. Observing
actions in real life, we see that when one person points out an object
to another, he looks now at the object, now at the person, as if to
guide that person's look. When he hears a sound he may glance in the
direction of it, but then look away to listen. Often a suspended
action, with a fixed look of the face, will serve to arrest the
attention of auditors and fix it upon an idea. One should cultivate
first the look, then the supporting or completing action.

As to the movement of the arm and the form of the hand, one should be
careful not to become stiff and precise by following exact rules. In
general, it may be said that the beginning of the arm movement, being
from the body, is in the upper arm; the finish of it is at the tips of
the fingers, with the forefinger leading, or bringing the gesture to a
point. There is generally a slightly flexible, rythmical movement of
the arm and hand. This should not, as a rule, be very marked, and in
specially energetic action is hardly observable. In this arm action
there is an early preparatory movement, which indicates or suggests,
what is coming. Often a moment of suspense in the preparation enhances
the effect of the finish, or stroke, of the gesture, which corresponds
usually to the vocal emphasis. At the final pointing of the action, the
hand is, for a moment or for moments, fixed, as the mind and the man
are fixed, for the purpose of holding the attention of the auditor;
then follows the recovery, so-called, from the gesture, or it may be,
the passing to another gesture. And all the while, let it again be
said, slight changes of bodily pose with proper adjustments of the
feet, will make the harmonious, unified action. It should be remembered
that, as in viewing a house or a picture we should be impressed by the
main body and the general effect, rather than by any one feature, so on
the same principle, no striking feature of a man's action should
attract attention to itself. On the same principle, no part of the hand
should be made conspicuous--the thumb or forefinger should not be too
much stuck out, nor the other fingers, except in pointing, be very much
curved in. Generally, except in precise pointing, there is a graduated
curving, not too nice, from the bent little finger to the straighter
forefinger. As the gesture is concerned with thought more delicate, the
action of the hand is lighter and tends more to the tips of the
fingers; as it is more rugged and strong, the hand is held heavier. It
is bad to carry the arm very far back, causing a strained look; to
stretch the arms too straight out, or to confine the elbow to the side.
The elbow is kept somewhat away even in the smallest gesture. While
action should have nerve, it should not become nervous, that is, over-
tense and rigid. It should be free and controlled, with good poise in
the whole man.

Before leaving this subject, in its physical aspect, let us consider
somewhat the matter of standing and moving on the platform. Among
imperfections as regards position, that kind of imperfection which
takes the form of perfectly fixed feet, strictly upright figure, hands
at the side, head erect, and eyes straight-of all bad kinds, this kind
is the worst. This is often referred to as school declamation, or the
speaking of a piece. We have discarded many old ideas of restriction in
education. Let us discard the strait-jacket in platform speaking.
Nobody else ever speaks as students are often compelled to speak. Let
them speak like boys--not like men even--much less like machines. There
is of course a good and a bad way of standing and moving, but much is
due to youth, to individuality, and to earnest intention, and a student
should have free play in a large degree.

In walking, the step should neither be too fast nor too slow, too long
nor too short, too much on the heel or too much on the toe. A simple,
straightforward way of getting there is all that is wanted. The arms
are left to swing easily, but not too much; nor should one arm swing
more than the other. The head, it will be noted, may occasionally rise
and fall as one goes up or down steps or walks the platform. Before
beginning to speak, one should not obviously take a position and
prepare. He should easily stop at his place, and, looking at his
auditors, begin simply to say something to them. As to the feet, they
will, of course, be variously placed or adjusted according to the pose
of the body in the varying moods of the speech. In general, the body
will rest more on one foot than on the other. In a position of ease, as
usually at the beginning of a speech, one foot will bear most of the
weight. In this case, this foot will normally be pointed nearly to the
front; the other foot will be only very slightly in advance of this and
will be turned more outward. The feet will not be close together; nor
noticeably far apart. They need not--they had better not--as it is
sometimes pictured in books, be so set that a line passing lengthwise
through the freer foot will pass through the heel of the other foot. As
a man becomes earnest in speaking, his posture will vary, and often he
will stand almost equally on his two feet. In changing one's position,
it is best to acquire the habit of moving the freer foot, the one
lighter on the floor, first, thus avoiding a swaying, or toppling look
of the body.

In connection with the subject of standing, naturally comes the
question of the arms in the condition of inaction. It is possibly well
to train one's self, when learning to speak, to let the arms hang
relaxed at the side, but speakers do not often so hold the arms.
Usually there is a desk near, and the speaker when at rest drops one
hand upon this, or he lets one arm rest at the waist, or he brings the
two hands together. Any of these things may be done, if done simply,
easily, without nervous tightening, or too frequent shifting. One
thing, for practical reasons, should not be allowed, the too common
habit of clasping the hands behind the back. It will become a fixed
mannerism, and a bad one, for the hands are thus concealed, the
shoulders and head may droop forward, and the hands may be so tightened
together behind the back as to cause nervous tension in the body and in
the voice. The hands should be in place ready for expressive action.
The back is not such a place.

Nearly every movement that a man makes in speaking should have some
fitting relation to what he is at the moment saying. These movements
will then be varied. When certain repeated actions, without this proper
relation, are acquired, they are called mannerisms. They have no
meaning, and are obtrusive and annoying. Repeated jerking or bobbing of
the head, for a supposed emphasis; regularly turning the head from side
to side, for addressing all the audience; nervous shaking of the head,
as of one greatly in earnest; repeated, meaningless punching or
pounding of the air, always in the same way; shifting of one foot
regularly backward and forward; rising on the toes with each emphatic
word,--although single movements similar to these often have
appropriate place, none of these or others should be allowed to become
fixed mannerisms, habitually recurring movements, without a purpose. We
are sometimes told that certain manneristic ways are often a speaker's
strength. Probably this is at least half true. But eccentricities
should not be cultivated or indulged. They will come. We should have as
few as possible, or they won't count. One thing, however, should here
be said. Positive strength, with positive faults, is much better than
spiritless inoffensiveness. One should not give all his attention to
the avoiding of faults.

In the application of gesture to the expression of ideas, one is
helped, as has been said, by constantly heeding the general principle
of suiting the form of the gesture to the nature of the thought, or of
suiting the action to the word. Inasmuch as gesture so generally takes
the form of objects or actions, it is undoubtedly easier to begin with
the more concrete in language, or with the discussion of tangible
objects, and work from these to the more abstract and remotely
imaginary--from the more, to the less, familiar. Let the student
indicate the location, or the height, or the width, or the form of an
object. His action will probably be appropriate. Let him apply similar,
probably less definite, action to certain abstract ideas. Let him pass
to ideas more remote and vague, by action largely suggestive, not
definite or literal.

The most important, because the most fundamental, principle to be borne
in mind is that gesture should be made to enforce, not the superficial,
or incidental, ideas appearing in a statement, but the ideas which lie
behind the form of expression and are the real basis, or inhere in the
fundamental purpose, of the speaker's discourse.

At the close of Senator Thurston's speech on intervention in behalf of
Cuba, there is picturesque language for impressing the contention that
force is justified in a worthy cause. The speaker cites graphically
examples of force at Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Shiloh, Chattanooga,
and Lookout Heights. The student is here very likely to be led astray
by the fine opportunity to make gesture. He may vividly see and picture
the snows of Valley Forge, marked with bloodstained feet, and the other
scenes suggested, but forget about the central idea, the purpose behind
all the vivid forms of expression. Graphic, detailed gestures may have
the effect of making the pictures in themselves the main object. The
action here should be informal, unstudied, and merely remotely
suggestive. The speaker should keep to his one central idea, and keep
with his audience. Otherwise the speech will be insincere and
purposeless, perhaps absurd. The fundamental, not the superficial,
should determine the action. Young speakers almost invariably pick out
words or phrases, suggesting the possibility of a gesture, and give
exact illustration to them, as if the excellence of gesture were in
itself an object, when really the thing primarily to be enforced is not
these incidental features in the form of expression, but the underlying
idea of the whole passage. It is as if the steeple were made out of
proportion to the church, or a hat out of proportion to the man. This
misconception of what gesture really means is doubtless, in large
measure, the cause of making platform recitation often false and
offensive. The remedy does not lie in omitting gesture altogether, as
some seem to think, but in making gesture simple and true.

Finally, let the student remember that he goes to the platform, not to
make a splendid speech and receive praise for a brilliant exhibition of
his art, but that he goes there because the platform is a convenient
place from which to tell the people something he has to say. Let him
think it nothing remarkable that he should be there; let him so bear
himself, entering with simplicity, honesty, earnestness, and modesty,
into his work, that no one will think much about how his work is done.
Spirited oratory, with the commanding presence, the sweeping action,
and an overmastering force of utterance, may at times be called forth,
but these are given to a man out of his subject and by the occasion;
they are not to be assumed by him merely because he is before an
audience, or as necessary features of speech-making. Let the student
speak, first and always, as a self-respecting, thinking man, earnest
and strong, but self-controlled and sensible.




PLATFORM PRACTICE

THE FORMAL ADDRESS


The selections in the several sections for platform practice are to be
used for applying, in appropriate combination, the principles
heretofore worked out, one by one. The first group provides practice in
the more formal style. The occasion of the formal address requires, in
large degree, restraint and dignity. The thought is elevated; the mood
serious, in some cases subdued, the form of expression exact and firm.
The delivery should correspond. The tone should be, in some degree,
ennobled; the movement deliberate, and comparatively even and measured;
the modulation not marked by striking variations in pitch; the pauses
rather regular, and the gesture always sparing, perhaps wholly omitted.
The voice should be generally pure and fine; the enunciation should be
finished and true. Whatever action there may be should be restrained,
well poised, deliberate, with some degree of grace. In general it
should be felt that carelessness or looseness or aggressiveness or
undue demonstrativeness would be out of harmony with the spirit of the
occasion. Good taste must be exercised at every step, and the audience
should be addressed, from the outset, as in sympathy with the speaker
and ready at once to approve. The spirit and manner of contention is
out of place.

In this style of discourse the liability to failure lies in the
direction of dullness, monotony, lack of vitality and warmth. This is
because the feeling is deep and still; is an undercurrent, strong but
unseen. This restrained, repressed feeling is the most difficult
fittingly to express. In this kind of speech some marring of just the
right effect is difficult to avoid. Simplicity, absolute genuineness,
are the essential qualities. The ideas must be conveyed with power and
significance, in due degree; but nothing too much is particularly the
watchword regarding the outward features of the work.


THE PUBLIC LECTURE


In the public lecture the element of entertainment enters prominently.
The audience, at first in a passive state, must be awakened, and taken
on with the speaker. Probably it must be instructed, perhaps amused.
The speaker must make his own occasion. He has no help from the
circumstance of predisposition among his auditors. He must compel, or
he must win; he must charm or thrill; or he must do each in turn.
Animation, force, beauty, dramatic contrast, vividness, variety, are
the qualities that will more or less serve, according to the style of
the composition. Aptness in the story or anecdote, facility in graphic
illustration, readiness in expressing emotion, happiness in the
imitative faculty, for touching off the eccentric in character or
incident, are talents that come into play, and in the exercise of
these, gesture of course has an important place.

The lecture platform is perhaps the only field, with possibly the
exception of what is properly the after-dinner speech, wherein public
speaking may be viewed as strictly an art, something to be taken for
its own sake, wherein excellence in the doing is principally the end in
view. This means, generally, that individual talent, and training in
all artistic requirements, count for more than the subject or any
"accidents of office," in holding the auditor's interest. An animated
and versatile style can be cultivated by striving to make effective the
public lecture.


THE INFORMAL DISCUSSION


Informal discussion is the name chosen for the lecture or talk in the
club or the classroom. It implies a rather small audience and familiar
relations between audience and speaker. While the subject may be
weighty, and the language may be necessarily of the literary or
scientific sort, the style of speaking should be colloquial. It ought
to bring the hearer pretty near to the speaker. If the subject and
language are light, the speaking will be sprightly and comparatively
swift.

Since the occasion for this kind of speaking is frequent, and the
opportunity for it is likely to fall to almost any educated man,
proficiency in it might well be made an object in the course of one's
educational training. The end aimed at is the ability to talk well.
This accomplishment is not so easy as it may seem. It marks, indeed,
the stage of maturity in speech-making. Since authoritative opinion
from the speaker and interest in the subject on the part of the
audience are prime elements in this form of discussion, little
cultivation of form is usually given to this kind of speaking. The
result is much complaining from auditors about inaudibleness, dullness,
monotony, annoying mannerisms, or a too formal, academic tone that
keeps the audience remote, a lack of what is called the human quality.
A good talker from the desk not only has the reward of appreciation and
gratitude, but is able to accomplish results in full proportion to all
that he puts into the improvement of his vocal work. An agreeable tone,
easy formation of words, clear, well-balanced emphasis, good phrasing,
or grouping of words in the sentence, some vigor without continual
pounding, easy, unstudied bodily movement without manneristic
repetition of certain motions, in short, good form without any
obtrusive appearance of form,--these are the qualities desired.


ARGUMENTATIVE SPEECH


In the case of the forensic, we come nearer to the practical in public
speaking. The speaker aims, as a rule, to effect a definite purpose,
and he concentrates his powers upon this immediate object. Since the
speech is for the most part an appeal to the reason, and therefore
deals largely with fact and the logical relations of ideas, precision
and clearness of statement are the chief qualities to be cultivated.
But since the aim is to overcome opposition, and produce conviction,
and so to impress and stir as to affect the will to a desired action,
the element of force, and the moving quality of persuasion enters in as
a reėnforcement of the speaker's logic. Generally the speech is very
direct, and often it is intense. It has in greater degree than any
other form the feature of aggressiveness. Some form of attack is
adopted, for the purpose of overthrowing the opposing force. That
attack is followed up in a direct line of argument, and is carried out
to a finish. In delivery the continuous line of pursuit thus followed
often naturally leads to a kind of effective monotone style, wherein
the speaker keeps an even force, or strikes blow after blow, or sends
shot after shot. The characteristic feature of the forensic style is
the climax--climax in brief successions of words, climax in the
sentence, climax in giving sections of the speech, climax in the speech
as a whole.

Special notice should be taken of the fact that, in earnest argument,
sentences have, characteristically, a different run from that in
ordinary expository speaking. Whereas in the expository style the
sentence flows, as a rule, easily forth, with the voice rising and
falling, in an undulatory sort of way, and dropping restfully to a
finish, in the heated forensic style, the sentence is given the effect
of being sent straight forth, as if to a mark, with the last word made
the telling one, and so kept well up in force and pitch. The
accumulating force has the effect of sending the last word home, or of
making it the one to clinch the statement.

The dangers to be guarded against in debate are wearying monotony,
over-hammering--too frequent, too hard, too uniform an emphasis--too
much, or too continued heat, too much speed, especially in speaking
against time, a loss of poise in the bearing, a halting or jumbling in
speech, nervous tenseness in action, an overcontentious or bumptious
spirit. Bodily control, restraint, good temper, balance, are the saving
qualities. A debater must remember that he need not be always in a
heat. Urbanity and graciousness have their place, and the relief
afforded by humor is often welcome and effective.

In no form of speaking, except that of dramatic recitation, is the
liability to impairment of voice so great as it is in debating. One of
the several excellent features of debating is that of the self-
forgetfulness that comes with an earnest struggle to win. But perhaps a
man cannot safely forget himself until he has learned to know himself.
The intensity of debating often leads, in the case of a speaker vocally
untrained, to a tightening of the throat in striving for force, to a
stiffening of the tongue and lips for making incisive articulation, to
a rigidness of the jaw from shutting down on words to give decisive
emphasis. Soon the voice has the juice squeezed out of it. The tone
becomes harsh and choked; then ragged and weak. The only remedy is to
go straight back and begin all over, just as a golfer usually does when
he has gone on without instruction. The necessity of going back is
often not realized till later in life; then the process is much harder,
and perhaps can never be entirely effective. The teacher in the course
of his experience meets many, many such cases. The time to learn the
right way is at the beginning.

Among the selections here offered for forensic practice, examples in
debate serve for the cultivation of the aggressiveness that comes from
immediate opposition; examples in the political speech for acquiring
the abandon and enthusiasm of the so-called popular style; in the legal
plea for practice in suppressed force. In the case of the last of
these, it is well that the audience be near to the speaker, as is the
case in an address to a judge or jury. The idea is to be forcible
without being loud and high; to cultivate a subdued tone that shall, at
the same time, be vital and impressive. The importance of a manner of
speaking that is not only clear and effective, but also agreeable, easy
to listen to, is quite obvious when we consider the task of a judge or
a jury, who have to sit for hours and try to carry in their minds the
substance of all that has been said, weighing point against point,
balancing one body of facts against another. A student can arrange
nearly the same conditions as to space, and can, by exercise of
imagination, enter into the spirit of a legal conflict.


THE AFTER-DINNER SPEECH


After-dinner speaking is another form that many men may have an
opportunity to engage in. It can also be practiced under conditions
resembling those of the actual occasion, that is, members of the class
can be so seated that the speaking may become intimate in tone, and
speeches can be selected that will serve for cultivating that
distinctive, sociable quality of voice that, in itself, goes far in
contributing to the comfort and delight of the after-dinner audience.
The real after-dinner speech deals much in pleasantry. The tone of
voice is characteristically unctuous. Old Fezziwig is described by
Dickens as calling out "in a comfortable, rich, fat, jovial, oily
voice." Something like this is perhaps the ideal after-dinner voice,
although there is a dry humor as well as an unctuous, and each speaker
will, after all, have his own way of making his hearers comfortable,
happy, and attentive. Ease and deliberation are first requisites.
Nervous intensity may not so much mar the effect of earnest debate. The
social chat is spoiled by it. Humor, as a rule, requires absolute
restfulness. Especially should a beginner guard himself against haste
in making the point at the finish of a story. It does no harm to keep
the hearer waiting a bit, in expectation. The effect may be thus
enhanced, while the effect will be entirely lost if the point, and the
true touch, are spoiled by uncontrolled haste. The way to gain this
ease and control is not by stiffening up to master one's self, but by
relaxing, letting go of one's self. Practice in the speech of
pleasantry may have great value in giving a man repose, in giving him
that saving grace, an appreciation of the humorous, in affording him a
means of relief or enlivenment to the serious speech.


THE OCCASIONAL POEM


The occasional poem is so frequently brought forth in connection with
speech-making that some points regarding metrical reading may be quite
in place in a speaker's training. Practice in verse reading is of use
also because of the frequency of quoted lines from the poets in
connection with the prose speech.

To read a poem well one must become in spirit a poet. He must not only
think, he must feel. He must exercise imagination. He must, we will say
it again, see visions and dream dreams. What was said about vividness
in the discussion of expressional effects applies generally to the
reading of poetry. One will read much better if he has tried to write--
in verse as well as in prose. He will then know how to put himself in
the place of the poet, and will not be so likely to mar the poet's
verses by "reading them ill-favoredly." He will know the value of words
that have been so far sought, and may not slur over them; he may feel
the sound of a line formed to suggest a sound in nature. He will know
that a meter has been carefully worked out, and that, in the reading,
that meter is of the spirit of the poem; it is not to be disregarded.
Likewise he will appreciate the place of rhyme, and may not try so to
cover it up as entirely to lose its effect. In humorous verse,
especially, rhyme plays an effective part; and in all verse,
alliteration, variations in melody, the lighter and the heavier touch,
acceleration and retard in movement, the caesura, or pause in the line,
and the happy effect of the occasional cadence, are features which one
can come to appreciate and respect only with reading one's favorite
poems many times, with spirit warm, with faculties alert.




THE MAKING OF THE SPEECH


Although the use of selected speeches is best for effective drill in
delivery, yet a student's training for public speaking is of course not
complete until he has had experience in applying his acquired skill to
the presenting of his own thought. Thinking and speaking should be made
one operation. The principles of composition for the public speech
belong to a separate work. A few hints only can be given here, and
these will be concerned with the informal, offhand speech rather than
with the formal address.

The usual directions regarding the choosing of the subject, the
collecting of material, and the arranging of it in the most effective
order, with exceptions and variations, hold in all forms of the speech.
The subject chosen should be one of special interest to the speaker,
one on which it is known he can speak with some degree of authority,
because of his personal study of it, or because of his having had
exceptional personal relations with it. It must also be, because of the
nature of it, or because of some special treatment, of particular
interest to the audience to be addressed. Either new, out-of-the-way
subjects, or new, fresh phases of old subjects are usually interesting.
The subject must be limited in its comprehensiveness to suit the time
allowed for speaking, and the title of the speech should be so phrased
as to indicate exactly what the subject, or the part of a subject, is
to be. To this carefully limited and defined subject, the speaker
should rigidly adhere.

How to find a subject is generally a topic on which students are
advised. Though it is often a necessity to hunt for a suitable special
topic on which to speak, the student should know that when he gets
outside the classroom, he will find that he will not be invited to
speak because he is ready at finding subjects and clever in speech. It
is not strange, in view of the many advertisements that reach young
men, offering methods of home training, or promising sure success from
this or that special method of schooling, that they may come to believe
that any one has only to learn to stand up boldly on a platform, and
with voice and gesture exercise some mysterious sort of magical control
over an audience, and his success as an orator is secure. They will
find that their time and money have been wasted, so far as public
speaking is concerned, unless, having at the start some native ability,
they have secured, in addition, a kind of training that is fundamental.
A man is wanted as a speaker primarily because he stands for something;
because he has done some noteworthy work. His subjects for discussion
arise out of his personal interests, and, to a large extent, his method
of treatment will be determined by his relation to these subjects. A
young man may well be advised, then, not simply how to choose and how
to present a subject, but first to secure a good mental training, and
then to find for himself an all-absorbing work to do. The wisdom that
comes from a concentrated intellectual activity, and an interest in
men's affairs, both directed to some unselfish end, is the essential
qualification of the speaker.

In considering the arrangement of a speech, the student will do well to
ask himself first, not what is to be the beginning of it, but what is
to be the end of it; what is the purpose of it; and what shall be the
central idea; what impression, or what principal thought or thoughts,
shall be left with the audience. When this is determined, then a way of
working out this central idea or of working up to it--in a short
speech, by a few points only--must be carefully and thoroughly planned.
Extemporaneous speaking is putting spontaneously into words what has
previously been well thought out and well arranged. Without this state
of preparation, the way of wisdom is silence.

The language of a speech is largely determined by the man's habit of
mind, the nature of his subject, and the character of his audience.
Students often err in one of two directions, either by being too
bookish in language or by allowing the other extreme of looseness, weak
colloquialism in words, and formless monotony of sentence, with the
endless repetition of the connective "and." Language should be fresh,
vital, varied. It should have some dignity. Much reading, writing, and
speaking are necessary to secure an adequate vocabulary, and a
readiness in putting in firm form a variety of sentences. Concreteness
of expression and occasional illustration are more needed in speech
than in writing, and the brief anecdote or story is welcome and useful
if there is room for it, and if it comes unbidden, by virtue of its
fitness and spontaneity, and is not drawn in by the ears for half-
hearted service. The inevitable story at the opening of an after-dinner
speech might often be spared. Although a good story is in itself
enjoyable, yet when a speaker feels that he must make one fit into the
speech, whether or no, by applying it to himself or his subject or the
occasion, the effect is often very unhappy. A man is best guided in
these things simply by being true, by being sincere rather than artful.
On this same principle, a student may need some advice with regard to
his spirit and manner in giving expression to his own ideas before an
audience. He need not, as students often seem to think they must,
appear to have full knowledge or final judgment on the largest of
subjects. It is more fitting that he should speak as a student, an
inquirer, not as an authority. If his statements are guarded and
qualified; if he speaks as one only inclined to an opinion when
finality of judgment is obviously beyond his reach; if he directly
refers, and defers, to opinions that must be better than his can be,
his speech will have much more weight, and he will grow in strength of
character by always being true to himself. It is a question whether
students are not too often inspired to be bold and absolute, for the
sake of apparent strength in speaking, rather than modest and judicious
and sensible, for the sake of being strong as men.

In the form of delivering one's thought to an audience, it is of the
first importance that one should speak and not declaim. There is, of
course, a way of talking on the platform that is merely negatively
good, a way that is fitting enough in general style, but weak. There
should be breadth, and strength, and reach. But this does not mean any
necessity of sending forth pointless successive sentences over the
heads of an audience. A college president recently said, "Our boys
declaim a good deal, though they're not so bad as they used to be. It
seems to me," he added, "that the idea is to say something to your
audience." That is what a teacher must be continually insisting on,
that the student say something to somebody, not chant or declaim into
space. And the student should be continually testing himself on this
point, whether he is looking into the faces of his hearers and
speaking, though on a larger scale, yet in the usual way of
communicating ideas.

It is not desirable that men should become overready speakers. Methods
of training in extemporaneous discussion that require speaking without
thought, on anything or nothing that can be at the moment invented, are
likely to be mischievous. Thought suggests expression, and exact
thought will find fit form. Sound thinking is the main thing. Practice
for mere fluency tends to the habit of superficial thinking, and
produces the wearisome, endless talker. In this connection emphasis may
be laid upon the point of ending a speech when its purpose is
accomplished, and that as soon as can be. Many speeches are spoiled by
the last third or quarter of them, when a point well made has lost its
effect by being overenforced or obscured by a wordy conclusion. Let the
student study for rare thought and economy of speech.

Books on speaking have repeatedly insisted that after all has been
said, the public speaker's word will be taken for what he is known to
be worth as a man; that his utterances will have effect according as
they are given out with soul-felt earnestness. This has already been
touched upon here, and it is well that it should be often repeated. It
may be well, however, also to consider quite carefully what part is
played in men's efforts by the element of skill. Of two equally worthy
and equally earnest men, the man of the superior skill, acquired by
persistent training in method, will be the stronger man, the man who
will be of more service to his fellows. More than this, inasmuch as
public men can seldom be perfectly known or judged as to character, and
may often, for a time at least, deceive, it is quite possible that the
unscrupulous man with great skill will, at some moment of crisis, make
the worse appear to be the better cause. Equally skilled men are
therefore wanted to contend for the side of right. The man whose
service to men depends largely upon his power of speech--in the pulpit,
at the bar, or in non-professional capacity--must have, either from
gift or from training, the speaker's full equipment, for matching
himself against opposing strength.




REVIEW EXERCISES


For convenience of practice, a few pages of brief exercises,
exemplifying the foregoing principles, are given at the end of the
book. By using each day one example in each group, and changing from
time to time, the student will have sufficient variety to serve
indefinitely. This vocal practice may be made a healthful and
pleasurable daily exercise.




PART TWO


TECHNICAL TRAINING

ESTABLISHING THE TONE


O SCOTIA!

From "The Cotter's Saturday Night"

BY ROBERT BURNS

  O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
    For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
  Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
    Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
    And oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
  From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
    Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
  A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

  O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide,
    That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart,
  Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
    Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
    (The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art,
  His friend, inspirer, guardian and reward!)
    Oh never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
  But still the patriot, and the patriot bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!


O ROME! MY COUNTRY!

From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

BY LORD BYRON

  O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
  The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
  Lone mother of dead empires! and control
  In their shut breasts, their petty misery.
  What are our woes and sufferance?--Come and see
  The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
  O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
  Whose agonies are evils of a day:--
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

  The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
  Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
  An empty urn within her withered hands,
  Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;--
  The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
  The very sepulchers lie tenantless
  Of their heroic dwellers:--dost thou flow,
  Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!


RING OUT, WILD BELLS!

From "In Memoriam"

BY ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.


ROLL ON, THOU DEEP!

From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

BY LORD BYRON

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!
  Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
  Stops with the shore: upon the watery plain,
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
  A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
  He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
  Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

The armaments, which thunderstrike the walls
  Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
  The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
  Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
  They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
  Alike th' Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee:
  Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,--what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
  And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
  Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves play,
  Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
  Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
  Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
  I wanton'd with thy breakers--they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
  Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear.


THOU, TOO, SAIL ON!

From "The Building of the Ship," by permission of, and by special
Arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers
of this author's works.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;

'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee!


O TIBER, FATHER TIBER!

From "Horatius"

BY LORD MACAULAY

"O Tiber, Father Tiber!
  To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,
  Take thou in charge this day!"
So he spake, and, speaking, sheathed
  The good sword by his side,
And, with his harness on his back,
  Plunged headlong in the tide.

No sound of joy or sorrow
  Was heard from either bank,
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
  Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surges
  They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany
  Could scarce forbear to cheer.

But fiercely ran the current,
  Swollen high by months of rain,
And fast his blood was flowing,
  And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armor,
  And spent with changing blows;
And oft they thought him sinking,
  But still again he rose.

And now he feels the bottom;--
  Now on dry earth he stands;
Now round him throng the Fathers
  To press his gory hands.
And now, with shouts and clapping,
  And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River Gate,
  Borne by the joyous crowd.


MARULLUS TO THE ROMAN CITIZENS

From "Julius Cęsar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Flavius_. Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

_Second Citizen_. Indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see
Cęsar, and to rejoice in his triumph.

_Marullus_. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.


THE RECESSIONAL

From "Collected Verse," with the permission of A. P. Watt and Son,
London, and Doubleday, Page and Company, New York, publishers

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

God of our fathers, known of old--
  Lord of our far-flung battle-line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
  Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies--
  The captains and the kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
  An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

Far-called our navies melt away--
  On dune and headland sinks the fire,
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
  Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
  Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
  Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

For heathen heart that puts her trust
  In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
  And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord.


THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY

From Webster's Reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate. Little,
Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The Great Speeches and
Orations of Daniel Webster"

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she
needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There
is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is
secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill;
and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in
the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of
every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie
forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and
where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the
strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and
disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk
at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and
necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by
which alone its existence is made sure,--it will stand, in the end, by
the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will
stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over
the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it
must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very
spot of its origin.


THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS

Delivered in the House of Lords, February 13, 1788

BY EDMUND BURKE

My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your
Lordships of this,--that Mr. Hastings's government was one whole system
of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public,
and of suppression of the whole system of the English government, in
order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could
possibly exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all
governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the
Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in
this last moment of my application to you.

Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great
Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose
national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights,
and liberties he has subverted.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has
destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly
outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in
the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which
ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in
the world.


BUNKER HILL

From the oration at the laying of the corner stone of the monument,
June 17, 1825. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The
Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster"

By DANIEL WEBSTER

This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling
which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing
with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude
turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament,
proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling
have made a deep impression on our hearts.

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate
us here. We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground
distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of
their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals,
nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble
purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born,
the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent
history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a
point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are
Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great
continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here
to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a
probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been
happily cast, and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by
the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before
many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass
that portion of our existence which God allows to man on earth.


THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

In dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., Nov. 19,
1863

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we
cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.




VOCAL FLEXIBILITY


CĘSAR, THE FIGHTER

From "The Courtship of Miles Standish," by permission of, and by
Special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized
publishers of this author's works

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

                        "A wonderful man was this Cęsar!

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow
Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skillful!"
Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:
"Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons.
Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate
Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs."
"Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hearing the other,
"Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cęsar!
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village,
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.
Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after;
Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered;
He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded;
Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus!
Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders,
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too,
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together
There was no room for their swords? Why, he seized a shield from a
soldier,
Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the
captains,
Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns;
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons;
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other.
That's what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"


OFFICIAL DUTY

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I want to talk to you of the attitude that should properly be observed
by legislators, by executive officers, toward wealth, and the attitude
that should be observed in return by men of means, and especially by
corporations, toward the body politic and toward their fellow citizens.

I utterly distrust the man of whom it is continually said: "Oh, he's a
good fellow, but, of course, in politics, he plays politics" It is
about as bad for a man to profess, and for those that listen to him by
their plaudits to insist upon his professing something which they know
he cannot live up to, as it is for him to go below what he ought to do,
because if he gets into the habit of lying to himself and to his
audience as to what he intends to do, it is certain to eat away his
moral fiber.

He won't be able then to stand up to what he knows ought to be done.
The temptation of the average politician is to promise everything to
the reformers and then to do everything for the organization. I think I
can say that, whatever I have promised on the stump or off the stump,
either expressly or impliedly, to either organization or reformers, I
have kept my promise; and I should keep it just as much if the
reformers disapproved.

A public man is bound to represent his constituents, but he is no less
bound to cease to represent them when, on a great moral question, he
feels that they are taking the wrong side. Let him go out of politics
rather than stay in at the cost of doing what his own conscience
forbids him to do.


LOOK WELL TO YOUR SPEECH

From "Self-Cultivation in English," with the permission of the author,
and of Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, publishers

BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER

First, then, "Look well to your speech." It is commonly supposed that
when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an
article for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the
wrong end. We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The
busiest writer produces little more than a volume a year, not so much
as his talk would amount to in a week. Consequently through speech it
is usually decided whether a man is to have command of his language or
not. If he is slovenly in his ninety-nine cases of talking, he can
seldom pull himself up to strength and exactitude in the hundredth case
of writing. A person is made in one piece, and the same being runs
through a multitude of performances. Whether words are uttered on paper
or to the air, the effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or
feebleness results according as energy or slackness has been in
command. I know that certain adaptations to a new field are often
necessary. A good speaker may find awkwardnesses in himself when he
comes to write, a good writer when he speaks. And certainly cases occur
where a man exhibits distinct strength in one of the two, speaking or
writing, and not in the other. But such cases are rare. As a rule,
language once within our control can be employed for oral or for
written purposes. And since the opportunities for oral practice
enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which are
chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly
say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own
tongue.

Fortunate it is, then, that self-cultivation in the use of English must
chiefly come through speech; because we are always speaking, whatever
else we do. In opportunities for acquiring a mastery of language, the
poorest and busiest are at no large disadvantage as compared with the
leisured rich. It is true the strong impulse which comes from the
suggestion and approval of society may in some cases be absent; but
this can be compensated by the sturdy purpose of the learner. A
recognition of the beauty of well-ordered words, a strong desire,
patience under discouragements, and promptness in counting every
occasion as of consequence,--these are the simple agencies which sweep
one on to power. Watch your speech, then.


HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS

From "Hamlet"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Hamlet_. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players
do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very
torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-
shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

_I Player_. I warrant your honor.

_Hamlet_. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature;
for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror
up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and
the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this
overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must
in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of
Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted
and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made
men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.


BELLARIO'S LETTER

From "The Merchant of Venice"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Duke_. This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned
doctor to our court. Where is he?

_Nerissa_. He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether
you'll admit him.

_Duke_. With all my heart. Some three or four of you Go give him
courteous conduct to this place. Meantime the court shall hear
Bellario's letter.

_Clerk_ (reads). "Your grace shall understand that at the receipt
of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your messenger
came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name
is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between
the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together:
he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning,
the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my
importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech
you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend
estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I
leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish
his commendation."


CASCA, SPEAKING OF CĘSAR

From "Julius Cęsar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Casca_. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?

_Brutus_. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day, That Cęsar
looks so sad.

_Casca_. Why, you were with him, were you not?

_Brutus_. I should not, then, ask Casca what had chanc'd.

_Casca_. Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he
put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell
a-shouting.

_Brutus_. What was the second noise for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Cassius_. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice?

_Casca_. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time
gentler than other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors
shouted.

_Cassius_. Who offered him the crown?

_Casca_. Why, Antony.

_Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

_Casca_. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was
mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a
crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--
and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my
thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again;
then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay
his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it
the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted,
and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps,
and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Cęsar refused the
crown, that it had almost choked Cęsar; for he swooned, and fell down
at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my
lips, and receiving the bad air.


SQUANDERING OF THE VOICE

From "Lectures on Oratory" BY HENRY WARD BEECHER

How much squandering there is of the voice! How little there is of the
advantage that may come from conversational tones! How seldom does a
man dare to acquit himself with pathos and fervor! And the men are
themselves mechanical and methodical in the bad way who are most afraid
of the artificial training that is given in the schools, and who so
often show by the fruit of their labor that the want of oratory is the
want of education.

How remarkable is the sweetness of voice in the mother, in the father,
in the household! The music of no chorded instruments brought together
is, for sweetness, like the music of familiar affection when spoken by
brother and sister, or by father and mother.

Conversation itself belongs to oratory. How many men there are who are
weighty in argument, who have abundant resources, and who are almost
boundless in their power at other times and in other places, but who,
when in company among their kind, are exceedingly unapt in their
methods. Having none of the secret instruments by which the elements of
nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction,
they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. A man may be a
master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has
the living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony
springs forth at his touch! And if you can electrify an audience by the
power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that
audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is
alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!


THE TRAINING OF THE GENTLEMAN

From "Personal Power," by permission of, and by special arrangement
with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's
works.

BY WILLIAM J. TUCKER

In this talk about the part which the college may take in the training
of a gentleman, I have not dwelt, as you have noticed, upon forms or
conventionalities. Every gentleman respects form. Respect for form can
be taught, or at least inculcated, but not form itself. One comes to be
at ease in society by going into society. Manners come by observation.
We imitate, we follow the better fashion of society, the better
behavior of men. Good breeding consists first in the attention of
others in our behalf to certain necessary details, then in our
attention to them. We come in time to draw close and nice distinctions.
This little thing is right, that is not quite right. So we grow into
the formal habits of a gentleman. "Good manners are made up of constant
and petty sacrifices," says Emerson. It is well to keep this saying in
mind as a qualification of another of his more familiar sayings: "Give
me a thought, and my hands and legs and voice and face will all go
right. It is only when mind and character slumber that the dress can be
seen."

I like to see the well-bred man, to whom the details of social life
have become a second nature. I like also to see the play of that first
healthy instinct in a true man which scorns a mean act, which will not
allow him to take part in the making of a mean custom, which for
example, if he be a college fellow, will not suffer him to treat
another fellow as a fag. I am entirely sure that that man is a
gentleman.

So then it is, in this world of books, of companionship, of sport, of
struggle with some of us, of temptation also, and yet more of high
incentives, we are all set to the task of coming out, and of helping
one another to come out, as gentlemen. Do not miss, I beseech you, the
greatness of the task. Do not miss its constancy. It is more than the
incidental work of a college to train the efficient, the honorable, the
unselfish man. A college-bred man must be able to show at all times and
on all occasions the quality of his distinction.




MAKING THE POINT


BRUTUS TO THE ROMAN CITIZENS

From "Julius Cęsar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Be patient till the last.

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent,
that you may hear: believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine
honor, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your
senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this
assembly, any dear friend of Cęsar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love
to Cęsar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus
rose against Cęsar, this is my answer,--Not that I loved Cęsar less,
but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cęsar were living, and die
all slaves, than that Cęsar were dead, to live all free men? As Cęsar
loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate I rejoice at it; as he
was valiant, I honor him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There
is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and
death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not
be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile
that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I have done no more to Cęsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question
of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated,
wherein he was worthy; nor his offenses enforced, for which he suffered
death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had
no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place
in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,--
that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same
dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.


THE PRECEPTS OF POLONIUS

From "Hamlet"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!


THE HIGH STANDARD

From the Lord Rector's address, University of Edinburgh, 1882

BY LORD ROSEBERY

Let us win in the competition of international well-being and
prosperity. Let us have a finer, better educated, better lodged, and
better nourished race than exists elsewhere; better schools, better
universities, better tribunals, ay, and better churches. In one phrase,
let our standard be higher, not in the jargon of the Education
Department, but in the acknowledgment of mankind. The standard of
mankind is not so exalted but that a nobler can be imagined and
attained. The dream of him who loved Scotland best would lie not so
much in the direction of antiquarian revival, as in the hope that his
country might be pointed out as one that in spite of rocks, and rigor,
and poverty, could yet teach the world by precept and example, could
lead the van and point the moral, where greater nations and fairer
states had failed. Those who believe the Scots to be so eminently vain
a race, will say that already we are in our opinion the tenth legion of
civilization. Well, vanity is a centipede with corns on every foot: I
will not tread where the ground is most dangerous. But if we are not
foremost, we may at any rate become so. Our fathers have declared unto
us what was done in their days and in the old time before them: we know
that we come of a strenuous stock. Do you remember the words that young
Carlyle wrote to his brother nine years after he had left this
University as a student, forty-three years before he returned as its
Rector?--

"I say, Jack, thou and I must never falter. Work, my boy, work
unweariedly. I swear that all the thousand miseries of this hard fight,
and ill-health, the most terrific of them all, shall never chain us
down. By the river Styx it shall not! Two fellows from a nameless spot
in Annandale shall yet show the world the pluck that is in Carlyles."

Let that be your spirit to-day. You are citizens of no mean city,
members of no common state, heirs of no supine empire. You will many of
you exercise influence over your fellow men: some will study and
interpret our laws, and so become a power; others will again be in a
position to solace and exalt, as destined to be doctors and clergymen,
and so the physical and spiritual comforters of mankind. Make the best
of these opportunities. Raise your country, raise your University,
raise yourselves.


ON TAXING THE COLONIES

Delivered in the House of Commons, March, 1775

BY EDMUND BURKE

Reflect, sirs, that when you have fixed a quota of taxation for every
colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. You must
make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging
men to England for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All
is to begin again. From this day forward the empire is never to know an
hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the bowels
of the colonies, which one time or other must consume this whole
empire.

Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a perpetual
quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proposed this project seems himself
to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking the
union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. But whatever his
views may be, as I propose the peace and union of the colonies as the
very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with one whose foundation
is perpetual discord.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the
other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh.
This is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a
new project. This is universal; the other calculated for certain
colonies only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the
other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the
dignity of a ruling people--gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out
as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing it to
you. I have indeed tried you by a long discourse; but this is the
misfortune of those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and
who must win every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me
with goodness. May you decide with wisdom!


JUSTIFYING THE PRESIDENT

From a speech in the Senate, 1900

By JOHN C. SPOONER

Some one asked the other day why the President did not bring about a
cessation of hostilities. Upon what basis could he have brought about a
cessation of hostilities? Should he have asked Aguinaldo for an
armistice? If so, upon what basis should he have requested it? What
should he say to him? "Please stop this fighting"? "What for,"
Aguinaldo would say; "do you propose to retire?" "No." "Do you propose
to grant us independence?" "No, not now." "Well, why, then, an
armistice?" The President would doubtless be expected to reply: "Some
distinguished gentlemen in the United States, members of the United
States Senate, and others, have discovered a doubt about our right to
be here at all, some question whether we have acquired the Philippines,
some question as to whether we have correctly read the Declaration of
Independence; and I want an armistice until we can consult and
determine finally whether we have acquired the Philippines or not,
whether we are violating the Declaration of Independence or not,
whether we are trampling upon the Constitution or not." That is
practically the proposition.

No, Mr. President, men may say in criticism of the President what they
choose. He has been grossly insulted in this chamber, and it appears
upon the record. He has gone his way patiently, exercising the utmost
forbearance, all his acts characterized by a desire to do precisely
what the Congress had placed upon him by its ratification of the treaty
and its increase of the army. He has done it in a way to impress upon
the Filipinos, so far as language and action could do it, his desire,
and the desire of our people, to do them good, to give them the largest
possible measure of liberty.


BRITAIN AND AMERICA

From an address in the House of Commons, March, 1865

BY JOHN BRIGHT

Why should we fear a great nation on the American Continent? Some
people fear that, should America become a great nation, she will be
arrogant and aggressive. But that does not follow. The character of a
nation does not depend altogether upon its size, but upon the
intelligence, instruction, and morals of its people. You fancy the
supremacy of the sea will pass away from you; and the noble lord, who
has had much experience, and is supposed to be wiser on the subject
than any other man in the House, will say that "Rule Britannia," that
noble old song, may become obsolete. Well, inasmuch as the supremacy of
the seas means arrogance and the assumption of dictatorial power on the
part of this country, the sooner that becomes obsolete the better. I do
not believe that it is for the advantage of this country, or of any
country in the world, that any one nation should pride itself upon what
is termed the supremacy of the sea; and I hope the time is coming--I
believe the hour is hastening--when we shall find that law and justice
will guide the councils and will direct the policy of the Christian
nations of the world. Nature will not be baffled because we are jealous
of the United States--the decrees of Providence will not be overthrown
by aught we can do.

The population of the United States is now not less than 35,000,000.
When the next Parliament of England has lived to the age which this has
lived to, that population will be 40,000,000, and you may calculate the
increase at the rate of rather more than 1,000,000 of persons per year.
Who is to gainsay it? Will constant snarling at a great republic alter
this state of things, or swell us up in these islands to 40,000,000 or
50,000,000, or bring them down to our 30,000,000? Honorable members and
the country at large should consider these facts, and learn from them
that it is the interest of the nations to be at one--and for us to be
in perfect courtesy and amity with the great English nation on the
other side of the Atlantic.




VALUES AND TRANSITIONS


KING ROBERT OF SICILY

From "King Robert of Sicily," by permission of, and by special
arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of
this author's works.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

Days came and went; and now returned again
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign;
Under the Angel's governance benign
The happy island danced with corn and wine.

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,
Sullen and silent and disconsolate.
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,
With look bewildered and a vacant stare,
Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn,
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,
His only friend the ape, his only food
What others left,--he still was unsubdued.
And when the Angel met him on his way,
And half in earnest, half in jest, would say,
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel,
"Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe
Burst from him in resistless overflow,
And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling
The haughty answer back, "I am, I am the King!"
Almost three years were ended; when there came
Ambassadors of great repute and name
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane
By letter summoned them forthwith to come
On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome.
And lo! among the menials, in mock state,
Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,
His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind,
The solemn ape demurely perched behind,
King Robert rode, making huge merriment
In all the country towns through which they went.
The Pope received them with great pomp and blare
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's square,
Giving his benediction and embrace
Fervent and full of apostolic grace.
While with congratulations and with prayers
He entertained the Angel unawares,
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd,
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud:
"I am the King! Look, and behold in me
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!
This man who wears my semblance to your eyes,
Is an imposter in a king's disguise.
Do you not know me? does no voice within
Answer my cry, and say we are akin?"
The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien,
Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene;
The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport
To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!"
And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace
Was hustled back among the populace.


LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE

An extract from "Masters of the Situation," a lecture

BY JAMES T. FIELDS

When I talk across an ocean of 3000 miles, with my friends on the other
side of it, and feel that I may know any hour of the day if all goes
well with them, I think with gratitude of the immense energy and
perseverance of that one man, Cyrus W. Field, who spent so many years
of his life in perfecting a communication second only in importance to
the discovery of this country. Think what that enthusiast accomplished
by his untiring energy. He made fifty voyages across the Atlantic.
Eight years more he encountered the odium of failure, but still kept
plowing across the Atlantic, flying from city to city, soliciting
capital, holding meetings and forcing down this most colossal
discouragement. At last day dawned again, and another cable was paid
out--this time from the deck of the "Great Eastern." Twelve hundred
miles of it were laid down, and the ship was just lifting her head to a
stiff breeze then springing up, when, without a moment's warning, the
cable suddenly snapped short off, and plunged into the sea. Nine days
and nights they dragged the bottom of the sea for this lost treasure,
and though they grappled it three times, they could not bring it to the
surface. In five months another cable was shipped on board the "Great
Eastern," and this time, by the blessing of heaven, the wires were
stretched unharmed from continent to continent. Then came that never-
to-be-forgotten search, in four ships, for the lost cable. In the bow
of one of these vessels stood Cyrus Field, day and night, in storm and
fog, squall and calm, intensely watching the quiver of the grapnel that
was dragging two miles down on the bottom of the deep.

At length on the last night of August, a little before midnight, the
spirit of this great man was rewarded. I shall here quote his own
words, as none others could possibly convey so well the thrilling
interest of that hour. He says: "All felt as if life and death hung on
the issue. It was only when the cable was brought over the bow and onto
the deck that men dared to breathe. Even then they hardly believed
their eyes. Some crept toward it to feel of it to be sure it was there.
Then we carried it along to the electricians' room, to see if our long-
sought treasure was dead or alive. A few minutes of suspense and a
flash told of the lightning current again set free. Then the feeling
long pent up burst forth. Some turned away their heads and wept. Others
broke into cheers, and the cry ran from man to man, and was heard down
in the engine rooms, deck below deck, and from the boats on the water,
and the other ships, while the rockets lighted up the darkness of the
sea. Then, with thankful hearts, we turned our faces again to the West.
But soon the wind rose, and for thirty-six hours we were exposed to all
the dangers of a storm on the Atlantic. Yet, in the very height and
fury of the gale, as I sat in the electricians' room, a flash of light
came up from the deep, which, having crossed to Ireland, came back to
me in mid-ocean, telling me that those so dear to me, whom I had left
on the banks of the Hudson, were well, and following us with their
wishes and their prayers. This was like a whisper of God from the sea,
bidding me keep heart and hope."

And now, after all those thirteen years of almost superhuman struggle
and that one moment of almost superhuman victory, I think we may safely
include Cyrus Field among the masters of the situation.


O'CONNELL, THE ORATOR

From "Speeches and Lectures," with the permission of Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard, Boston, publishers.

BY WENDELL PHILLIPS

Broadly considered, O'Connell's eloquence has never been equaled in
modern times, certainly not in English speech. Do you think I am
partial? I will vouch John Randolph of Roanoke, the Virginia
slaveholder, who hated an Irishman almost as much as he hated a Yankee,
himself an orator of no mean level. Hearing O'Connell, he exclaimed,
"This is the man, these are the lips, the most eloquent that speak the
English tongue in my day!" I think he was right. I remember the
solemnity of Webster, the grace of Everett, the rhetoric of Choate; I
know the eloquence that lay hid in the iron logic of Calhoun; I have
melted beneath the magnetism of Sergeant S. Prentiss of Mississippi,
who wielded a power few men ever had; it has been my fortune to sit at
the feet of the great speakers of the English tongue on the other side
of the ocean; but I think all of them together never surpassed, and no
one of them ever equaled O'Connell.

Nature intended him for our Demosthenes. Never, since the great Greek,
has she sent forth one so lavishly gifted for his work as a tribune of
the people. In the first place, he had a magnificent presence,
impressive in bearing, massive, like that of Jupiter. Webster himself
hardly outdid him in the majesty of his proportions. To be sure, he had
not Webster's craggy face, and precipice of brow, not his eyes glowing
like anthracite coal. Nor had he the lion roar of Mirabeau. But his
presence filled the eye. A small O'Connell would hardly have been an
O'Connell at all. These physical advantages are half the battle.

I remember Russell Lowell telling us that Mr. Webster came home from
Washington at the time the Whig party thought of dissolution, a year or
two before his death, and went down to Faneuil Hall to protest; drawing
himself up to his loftiest proportion, his brow clothed with thunder,
before the listening thousands, he said, "Well, gentlemen, I am a Whig,
a Massachusetts Whig, a Faneuil-Hall Whig, a revolutionary Whig, a
constitutional Whig. If you break the Whig party, sir, where am I to
go?" And says Lowell, "We held our breath, thinking where he
_could_ go. If he had been five feet three, we should have said,
'Who cares where you go?'" So it was with O'Connell. There was
something majestic in his presence before he spoke; and he added to it
what Webster had not, what Clay might have lent--infinite grace, that
magnetism that melts all hearts into one. I saw him at over sixty-six
years of age; every attitude was beauty, every gesture grace. You could
only think of a greyhound as you looked at him; it would have been
delightful to watch him, if he had not spoken a word. Then he had a
voice that covered the gamut. The majesty of his indignation, fitly
uttered in tones of superhuman power, made him able to "indict" a
nation. Carlyle says, "He is God's own anointed king whose single word
melts all wills into his." This describes O'Connell. Emerson says,
"There is no true eloquence unless there is a man behind the speech."
Daniel O'Connell was listened to because all England and all Ireland
knew that there was a man behind the speech.

I heard him once say, "I send my voice across the Atlantic, careering
like the thunderstorm against the breeze, to remind the bondman that
the dawn of his redemption is already breaking." You seemed to hear the
tones come echoing back to London from the Rocky Mountains. Then, with
the slightest possible Irish brogue, he would tell a story, while all
Exeter Hall shook with laughter. The next moment, tears in his voice
like a Scotch song, five thousand men wept. And all the while no
effort. He seemed only breathing.

  "As effortless as woodland nooks
  Send violets up, and paint them blue."


JUSTIFICATION FOR IMPEACHMENT

Against Warren Hastings, House of Lords, February, 1788

BY EDMUND BURKE

In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon
Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you.

My Lords, what is it that we want here to a great act of national
justice? Do we want a cause, my Lords? You have the cause of oppressed
princes, of undone women of the first rank, of desolated provinces, and
of wasted kingdoms.

Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When was there so much iniquity ever
laid to the charge of any one? No, my Lords, you must not look to
punish any other such delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not
left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent.

My Lords, is it a prosecutor you want? You have before you the Commons
of Great Britain as prosecutors; and I believe, my Lords, that the sun,
in his beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a more
glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the
material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bonds of a social
and moral community--all the Commons of England resenting, as their
own, the indignities and cruelties that are offered to all the people
of India.

Do we want a tribunal? My Lords, no example of antiquity, nothing in
the modern world, nothing in the range of human imagination, can supply
us with a tribunal like this. My Lords, here we see virtually, in the
mind's eye, that sacred majesty of the Crown, under whose authority you
sit and whose power you exercise.

We have here all the branches of the royal family, in a situation
between majesty and subjection, between the sovereign and the subject--
offering a pledge, in that situation, for the support of the rights of
the Crown and the liberties of the people, both of which extremities
they touch.


WENDELL PHILLIPS, THE ORATOR

From "The Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis," Vol. III.
Copyright, 1894, by Harper and Brothers.

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

It was not until Lovejoy fell, while defending his press at Alton, in
November, 1837, that an American citizen was killed by a raging mob for
declaring, in a free State, the right of innocent men and women to
their personal liberty. This tragedy, like the deadly blow at Charles
Sumner in the Senate Chamber, twenty years afterward, awed the whole
country with a sense of vast and momentous peril. Never since the
people of Boston thronged Faneuil Hall on the day after the massacre in
State Street, had that ancient hall seen a more solemn and significant
assembly. It was the more solemn, the more significant, because the
excited multitude was no longer, as in the Revolutionary day, inspired
by one unanimous and overwhelming purpose to assert and maintain
liberty of speech as the bulwark of all other liberty. It was an
unwonted and foreboding scene. An evil spirit was in the air.

When the seemly protest against the monstrous crime had been spoken,
and the proper duty of the day was done, a voice was heard,--the voice
of the high officer solemnly sworn to prosecute, in the name of
Massachusetts, every violation of law, declaring, in Faneuil Hall,
sixty years after the battle of Bunker Hill, and amid a howling storm
of applause, that an American citizen who was put to death by a mad
crowd of his fellow citizens for defending his right of free speech,
died as the fool dieth. Boston has seen dark days, but never a moment
so dark as that. Seven years before, Webster had said, in the famous
words that Massachusetts binds as frontlets between her eyes, "There
are Boston and Concord, and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and there they
will remain forever." Had they already vanished? Was the spirit of the
Revolution quite extinct? In the very Cradle of Liberty did no son
survive to awake its slumbering echoes? By the grace of God such a son
there was. He had come with the multitude, and he had heard with
sympathy and approval the speeches that condemned the wrong; but when
the cruel voice justified the murderers of Lovejoy, the heart of the
young man burned within him. This speech, he said to himself, must be
answered. As the malign strain proceeded, the Boston boy, all on fire,
with Concord and Lexington tugging at his heart, unconsciously
murmured, "Such a speech in Faneuil Hall must be answered in Faneuil
Hall." "Why not answer it yourself?" whispered a neighbor, who
overheard him. "Help me to the platform and I will,"--and pushing and
struggling through the dense and threatening crowd, the young man
reached the platform, was lifted upon it, and, advancing to speak, was
greeted with a roar of hostile cries. But riding the whirlwind
undismayed, as for many a year afterward he directed the same wild
storm, he stood upon the platform in all the beauty and grace of
imperial youth,--the Greeks would have said a god descended,--and in
words that touched the mind and heart and conscience of that vast
multitude, as with fire from heaven, recalling Boston to herself, he
saved his native city and her Cradle of Liberty from the damning
disgrace of stoning the first martyr in the great struggle for personal
freedom. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "when I heard the gentleman lay down
principles which placed the rioters, incendiaries, and murderers of
Alton, side by side with Otis and Hancock, and Quincy and Adams, I
thought those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke the
recreant American--the slanderer of the dead." And even as he spoke
the vision was fulfilled. Once more its native music rang through
Faneuil Hall. In the orator's own burning words, those pictured lips
did break into immortal rebuke. In Wendell Phillips, glowing with holy
indignation at the insult to America and to man, John Adams and James
Otis, Josiah Quincy and Samuel Adams, though dead, yet spake.

In the annals of American speech there had been no such scene since
Patrick Henry's electrical warning to George the Third. It was that
greatest of oratorical triumphs when a supreme emotion, a sentiment
which is to mold a people anew, lifted the orator to adequate
expression. Three such scenes are illustrious in our history: that of
the speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in
Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg,--three, and there is no
fourth.


ON THE DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS

From reports of the Webster-Hayne debate in the United States Senate,
January, 1830

BY ROBERT Y. HAYNE

In 1825 the gentleman told the world that the public lands "ought not
to be treated as a treasure." He now tells us that "they must be
treated as so much treasure." What the deliberate opinion of the
gentleman on this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine; but I
do not think he can, with the shadow of justice or propriety, impugn my
sentiments, while his own recorded opinions are identical with my own.
When the gentleman refers to the conditions of the grants under which
the United States have acquired these lands, and insists that, as they
are declared to be "for the common benefit of all the States," they can
only be treated as so much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of
construction too narrow for the case. If, in the deeds of cession, it
has been declared that the grants were intended "for the common benefit
of all the States," it is clear, from other provisions, that they were
not intended merely as so much property; for it is expressly declared
that the object of the grants is the erection of new States; and the
United States, in accepting this trust, bind themselves to facilitate
the foundation of those States, to be admitted into the Union with all
the rights and privileges of the original States.

This, sir, was the great end to which all parties looked, and it is by
the fulfillment of this high trust that "the common benefit of all the
States" is to be best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman that, in
the part of the country in which I live, we do not measure political
benefits by the money standard. We consider as more valuable than gold,
liberty, principle, and justice. But, sir, if we are bound to act on
the narrow principles contended for by the gentleman, I am wholly at a
loss to conceive how he can reconcile his principles with his own
practice. The lands are, it seems, to be treated "as so much treasure,"
and must be applied to the "common benefit of all the States." Now, if
this be so, whence does he derive the right to appropriate them for
partial and local objects? How can the gentleman consent to vote away
immense bodies of these lands for canals in Indiana and Illinois, to
the Louisville and Portland Canal, to Kenyon College in Ohio, to
schools for the deaf and dumb, and other objects of a similar
description?


THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

From "Speeches and Presidential Addresses," Current Literature
Publishing Company, New York.

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place,
where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion
to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live.
You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of
restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir,
that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far
as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated
in, and were given to the world from, this hall. I have never had a
feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied
in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the
dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed
and adopted that Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that were
endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that
independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or
idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the
mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that
sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not
alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all
future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the
weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all
should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the
Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved
on that basis? If it can, I shall consider myself one of the happiest
men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon
that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be
saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would
rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view
of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and
war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course;
and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it is
forced upon the government. The government will not use force, unless
force is used against it.

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not expect to be
called on to say a word when I came here. I supposed I was merely to do
something toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something
indiscreet. But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by,
and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.




EXPRESSING THE FEELING


NORTHERN GREETING TO SOUTHERN VETERANS

From "Speeches and Addresses," with the permission of the author and of
Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers.

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE

I was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to defend
Washington. I saw the troops, month after month, pour through the
streets of Boston. I saw Shaw go forth at the head of his black
regiment, and Bartlett, shattered in body, but dauntless in soul, ride
by to carry what was left of him once more to the battlefields of the
Republic. I saw Andrew, standing bareheaded on the steps of the State
House, bid the men godspeed. I cannot remember the words he said, but I
can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears to the eyes
and fire to the hearts of all who listened. To my boyish mind one thing
alone was clear, that the soldiers, as they marched past, were all, in
that supreme hour, heroes and patriots. Other feelings have, in the
progress of time, altered much, but amid many changes that simple
belief of boyhood has never altered.

And you, brave men who wore the gray, would be the first to hold me or
any other son of the North in just contempt if I should say that now it
was all over I thought the North was wrong and the result of the war a
mistake. To the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold
out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. We have no bitter memories
to revive, no reproaches to utter. Differ in politics and in a thousand
other ways we must and shall in all good nature, but never let us
differ with each other on sectional or state lines, by race or creed.

We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more eloquent than I
have said, to New England. We welcome you to old Massachusetts. We
welcome you to Boston and to Faneuil Hall. In your presence here, and
at the sound of your voices beneath this historic roof, the years roll
back, and we see the figure and hear again the ringing tones of your
great orator, Patrick Henry, declaring to the first Continental
Congress, "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New
Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an
American."

A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves of Arlington,
said: "Only a great people is capable of a great civil war." Let us add
with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great
reconciliation. Side by side Virginia and Massachusetts led the
colonies into the War for Independence. Side by side they founded the
government of the United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox,
Moultrie and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought
shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue,--the
uniform of Washington.

Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is sentiment, true
sentiment, that has moved the world. Sentiment fought the war, and
sentiment has reunited us.

So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren
of Virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, tells
us that if war should break again upon the country the sons of Virginia
and Massachusetts would, as in the olden days, stand once more shoulder
to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors that they wear. It is
fraught with tidings of peace on earth, and you may read its meaning in
the words on yonder picture, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one
and inseparable!"


MATCHES AND OVERMATCHES

From Webster's reply to Hayne in the United States Senate, January,
1830, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

If, sir, the honorable member, _modestia gratia_, had chosen thus
to defer to his friend and to pay him a compliment without intentional
disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the
friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own
feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard,
whether light and occasional or more serious and deliberate, which may
be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from themselves.
But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to
interpret it, I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a
civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement,
something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not
allow me to pass it over without notice. It was put as a question for
me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer,
whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in
debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language
and an extraordinary tone for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than
here, and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman
seems to forget where and what we are. This is a senate, a senate of
equals, of men of individual honor and personal character and of
absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.
This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for
the exhibitions of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no
man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir,
since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls
for an answer, I will give him an answer; and tell him that, holding
myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in
the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the
arm of _his_ friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me
from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating
whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see
fit to say on the floor of the Senate.


THE COALITION

From the reply to Hayne

"The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster," Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, publishers.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion,
to betray myself into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I
never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable
member may perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to
take as well as to give; that others can state comparisons as
significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity may possibly
demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I
commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

But, sir, the Coalition! The Coalition! Aye, "the murdered Coalition!"
The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the
specter of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the murdered Coalition,"
he exclaims, "which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which,
like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered Coalition!"
Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late
administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not
spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an
embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very
low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the
thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited
political canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof
or probability, but which was in itself wholly impossible to be true.
No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was
of that class of falsehoods which, by continued repetition, through all
the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who
are already far misled, and of further fanning passion already kindling
into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in greater or less
degree, the end designed by it. Having done that, it has sunk into the
general mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very cast-off
slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapable of further
mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now,
sir, in the power of the honorable member to give it dignity or decency
by attempting to elevate it and to introduce it into the Senate. He
cannot change it from what it is, an object of general disgust and
scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more
likely to drag him down, down to the place where it lies itself.


IN HIS OWN DEFENSE

BY ROBERT EMMET

I am asked what I have to say why sentence of death should not be
pronounced on me, according to law.

I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France!
and for what end? It is alleged that I wish to sell the independence of
my country; and for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And
is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles
contradictions? No; I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a
place among the deliverers of my country, not in power nor in profit,
but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to
France! and for what? Was it for a change of masters? No, but for
ambition. O my country! was it personal ambition that could influence
me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and
fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself
amongst the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol! To it
I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now
offer up my life.

My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. Be yet patient! I have
but a few more words to say--I am going to my cold and silent grave--my
lamp of life is nearly extinguished--my race is run--the grave opens to
receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at
my departure from this world: it is--the charity of its silence. Let no
man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dares now
vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them
and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed,
until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my
country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not
till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.


ON RESISTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN

From a speech in the Provincial Convention, Virginia, March, 1775

BY PATRICK HENRY

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array

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