Successful Methods of Public Speaking Part 7

They have gone to the companions of their cares, of their dangers, and their toils. It is well with them. The treasures of America are now in heaven. How long the list of our good, and wise, and brave, a.s.sembled there! How few remain with us! There is our Washington; and those who followed him in their country's confidence are now met together with him and all that ill.u.s.trious company.--_Adams and Jefferson:_ EDWARD EVERETT.

_A Study in Clearness of Expression_

7. I can not leave this life and character without selecting and dwelling a moment on one or two of his traits, or virtues, or felicities, a little longer. There is a collective impression made by the whole of an eminent person's life, beyond, and other than, and apart from, that which the mere general biographer would afford the means of explaining. There is an influence of a great man derived from things indescribable, almost, or incapable of enumeration, or singly insufficient to account for it, but through which his spirit transpires, and his individuality goes forth on the contemporary generation. And thus, I should say, one grand tendency of his life and character was to elevate the whole tone of the public mind. He did this, indeed, not merely by example. He did it by dealing, as he thought, truly and in manly fashion with that public mind. He evinced his love of the people not so much by honeyed phrases as by good counsels and useful service, _vera pro gratis_. He showed how he appreciated them by submitting sound arguments to their understandings, and right motives to their free will.

He came before them, less with flattery than with instruction; less with a vocabulary larded with the words humanity and philanthropy, and progress and brotherhood, than with a scheme of politics, an educational, social and governmental system, which would have made them prosperous, happy and great.--_On the Death of Daniel Webster:_ RUFUS CHOATE.

_A Study of Oratorical Style_

8. And yet this small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose departure from the Old World took little more than the breath of their bodies--are now ill.u.s.trious beyond the lot of men; and the Mayflower is immortal beyond the Grecian Argo or the stately ship of any victorious admiral. Tho this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now how it has come to pa.s.s. The highest greatness surviving time and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the circ.u.mstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, the poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth, such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads coextensive with the cause they served.--_The Qualities that Win:_ CHARLES SUMNER.

_A Study in Profound Thinking_

9. There is something greater in the age than its greatest men; it is the appearance of a new power in the world, the appearance of the mult.i.tude of men on the stage where as yet the few have acted their parts alone. This influence is to endure to the end of time. What more of the present is to survive? Perhaps much of which we now fail to note.

The glory of an age is often hidden from itself. Perhaps some word has been spoken in our day which we have not designed to hear, but which is to grow clearer and louder through all ages. Perhaps some silent thinker among us is at work in his closet whose name is to fill the earth.

Perhaps there sleeps in his cradle some reformer who is to move the church and the world, who is to open a new era in history, who is to fire the human soul with new hope and new daring. What else is to survive the age? That which the age has little thought of, but which is living in us all; I mean the soul, the immortal spirit. Of this all ages are the unfoldings, and it is greater than all. We must not feel, in the contemplation of the vast movements in our own and former times, as if we ourselves were nothing. I repeat it, we are greater than all. We are to survive our age, to comprehend it, and to p.r.o.nounce its sentence.--_The Present Age:_ W. E. CHANNING.

_A Study of Sustained Power_

10. Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the better education of practical life; crown his temples with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro,--rare military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons,--antic.i.p.ating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams, before any Englishman or American had won the right; and yet this is the record which the history of rival states makes up for this inspired black of St.

Domingo.--_Toussaint L'Ouverture:_ WENDELL PHILLIPS.

_Study in Beauty of Language_

11. He faced his audience with a tranquil mien and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no pa.s.sionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy--a gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely the ear and heart were charmed. How was it done?--Ah! how did Mozart do it, how Raffael?

The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstacy, of the sunset's glory--that is the secret of genius and of eloquence. What was heard, what was seen, was the form of n.o.ble manhood, the courteous and self-possest tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with matchless richness of ill.u.s.tration, with apt allusion and happy anecdote and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor, like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the resistless ship. Like an illuminated vase of odors, he glowed with concentrated and perfumed fire. The divine energy of his conviction utterly possest him, and his

"Pure and eloquent blood Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say his body thought."

Was it Pericles swaying the Athenian mult.i.tude? Was it Apollo breathing the music of the morning from his lips?--No, no! It was an American patriot, a modern son of liberty, with a soul as firm and as true as was ever consecrated to unselfish duty, pleading with the American conscience for the chained and speechless victims of American inhumanity.--_Eulogy of Wendell Phillips:_ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

_A Study in Powerful Delivery_

12. I thank you very cordially, both friends and opponents, if opponents you be, for the extreme kindness with which you have heard me. I have spoken, and I must speak in very strong terms of the acts done by my opponents. I will never say that they did it from pa.s.sion; I will never say that they did it from a sordid love of office; I have no right to use such words; I have no right to entertain such sentiments; I repudiate and abjure them; I give them credit for patriotic motives--I give them credit for those patriotic motives which are incessantly and gratuitously denied to us. I believe we are all united in a fond attachment to the great country to which we belong; to the great empire which has committed to it a trust and function from Providence, as special and remarkable as was ever entrusted to any portion of the family of man. When I speak of that trust and that function I feel that words fail. I can not tell you what I think of the n.o.bleness of the inheritance which has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and manhood, and, more than that, till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practise I have lived, and in that faith and practise I shall die.--_Midlothian Speech:_ WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.

_A Study in Purity of Style_

13. Is this a reality? or is your Christianity a romance? is your profession a dream? No, I am sure that your Christianity is not a romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not a dream. It is because I believe this that I appeal to you with confidence, and that I have hope and faith in the future. I believe that we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic principles spreading much more widely among the people; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed unfruitful; and, which will be better than all--the churches of the United Kingdom--the churches of Britain awaking, as it were, from their slumbers, and girding up their loins to more glorious work, when they shall not only accept and believe in the prophecy, but labor earnestly for its fulfilment, that there shall come a time--a blessed time--a time which shall last forever--when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."--_Peace:_ JOHN BRIGHT.

_A Study in Common Sense and Exalted Thought_

14. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Const.i.tution unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in this dispute there is still no single good reason for precipitate action.

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, are the momentous issues of civil war. The government will not a.s.sail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.--_The First Inaugural Address:_ ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC[1]

BY GRENVILLE KLEISER

[Footnote 1: A talk given before The Public Speaking Club of America.]

The art of public speaking is so simple that it is difficult. There is an erroneous impression that in order to make a successful speech a man must have unusual natural talent in addition to long and arduous study.

Consequently, many a person, when asked to make a speech, is immediately subjected to a feeling of fear or depression. Once committed to the undertaking, he spends anxious days and sleepless nights in mental agony, much as a criminal is said to do just prior to his execution.

When at last he attempts his "maiden effort," he is almost wholly unfit for his task because of the needless waste of thought and energy expended in fear.

Elbert Hubbard once confided to me that when he made deliberate preparation for an elaborate speech,--which was seldom,--it was invariably a disappointment. To push a great speech before him for an hour or more used up most of his vitality. It was like making a speech while attempting to carry a heavy burden on the back.

HOW THE SPEAKER MUST PREPARE HIMSELF

There is, of course, certain preparation necessary for effective public speaking. The so-called impromptu speech is largely the product of previous knowledge and study. What the speaker has read, what he has seen, what he has heard,--in short, what he actually knows, furnishes the available material for his use.

As the public speaker gains in experience, however, he learns to put aside, at the time of speaking, all conscious thought of rules or methods. He learns through discipline how to abandon himself to the subject in hand and to give spontaneous expression to all his powers.

_Primarily, then, the public speaker should have a well-stored mind._ He should have mental culture in a broad way; sound judgment, a sense of proportion, mental alertness, a retentive memory, tact, and common sense,--these are vital to good speaking.

_The physical requirements of the public speaker_ comprise good health and bodily vigor. He must have power of endurance, since there will be at times arduous demands upon him. It is worthy of note that most of the world's great orators have been men with great animal vitality.

The student of public speaking should give careful attention to his personal appearance, which includes care of the teeth. His clothes, linen, and the evidence of general care and cleanliness, will play an important part in the impression he makes upon an audience.

_Elocutionary training is essential._ Daily drill in deep breathing, articulation, p.r.o.nunciation, voice culture, gesture, and expression, are prerequisites to polished speech. Experienced public speakers of the best type know the necessity for daily practise.

_The mental training of the public speaker_, so often neglected, should be regular and thorough. A reliable memory and a vivid imagination are his indispensable allies.

_The moral side of the public speaker_ will include the development of character, sympathy, self-confidence and kindred qualities. To be a leader of other men, a speaker must have clear, settled, vigorous views upon the subject under consideration.

So much, briefly, as to the previous preparation of the speaker.

HOW THE SPEAKER MUST PREPARE HIS SPEECH

_As to the speech itself, the speaker first chooses a subject._ This will depend upon the nature of the occasion and the purpose in view. He proceeds intelligently to gather material on his selected theme, supplementing the resources of his own mind with information from books, periodicals, and other sources.

_The next step is to make a brief_, or outline of his subject. A brief is composed of three parts, called the introduction, the discussion or statement of facts, and the conclusion. Princ.i.p.al ideas are placed under headings and subheadings.

_The speaker next writes out his speech in full_, using the brief as the basis of procedure. The discipline of writing out a speech, even tho the intention is to speak without notes, is of inestimable value. It is one of the best indications of the speaker's thoroughness and sincerity.

When the speech has at last been carefully written out, revised, and approved, should it be committed word for word to memory, or only in part, or should the speaker read from the ma.n.u.script?