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. 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, Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 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, But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, O ROME! MY COUNTRY! From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" BY LORD BYRON O Rome! my country! city of the soul! A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: - dost thou flow, RING OUT, WILD BELLS! From "In Memoriam " BY ALFRED LORD TENNYSON Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring out the grief that saps the mind, Ring out a slowly dying cause, Ring out the want, the care, the sin, Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, 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, |