A STUDY OF THE PROPERTIES OF THOUGHT BY Wм. B. CHAMBERLAIN, A. M. PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION AND RHETORIC OBERLIN, OHIO E. J. GOODRICH, PUBLISHER 1892 E duc T 758,92,274 WWS COLLEGE LIBRARY By xchange from COPYRIGHT, 1892, OBERLIN, OHIO: 1892. PREFACE. THIS book is an outgrowth of practical class-room work. It is an effort to strengthen that work by furnishing a basis for pursuing elocution as a study. This it attempts to do by giving some definite statement of the principles that govern the mental processes of communication. Heretofore, too generally, the physical has led, instead of the mental. Elocution has been treated as if the materials of the science were tone and action. These are simply its tools. The design has been so to present the subject that the student should have a definite thing to do each day; should be able to have a lesson assigned, to prepare that lesson, and to bring into class the results of his work upon it, as definitely as in any other study. Our elocutionary work in schools and colleges has been, for the most part, a little class-room drill, interspersed with a few general hints and seed thoughts regarding expression. We have always said "Be flexible," "Be erect," "Let your bearing and gesture be expressive," etc.; but since Delsarte has shown us a rationale of bearing and gesture, we are able to substitute definite teaching -i. e., method-for general exhortation. Likewise we have said "Get the meaning," "Absorb the thought," "Realize the sense," without showing definite means for doing this obviously necessary thing. What is here proposed is some approach to a method for cultivating the thought-absorbing powers, in such a way as to connect them directly with the outward channels of expression. The object in presenting this part of the work as a study, is something broader and deeper than the securing of an external delivery for the individual student. It is hoped that the principles underlying the art of vocal expression will be found to offer true discipline, and to furnish their quota of material for a liberal training. The expressional analysis here undertaken is designed to supplement rhetorical analysis, forming a sort of cross-plowing and subsoiling of literary and rhetorical study. As it regards literature the attention is here given to the motive rather than the method, to mental processes rather than thought-products. A few points may here be suggested as to ways in which this subject may be made a genuine study. First. Principles of analysis and expression must be so distinctly and fully stated and so thoroughly illustrated that the student shall have firm footing to go upon. This involves careful work on the part of the teacher in presenting each new point. It is assumed that the teacher is an intelligent and sympathetic reader, a literary interpreter, though he need not be a great vocal artist. His chief business is to indoctrinate his students in principles of interpretation which shall give them a rational basis for criticism. No "rules" are here imposed. Principles must govern. |