I

INTRODUCTION

This is the day of concise speech. The tedious, longdrawn-out oratory of former times is no longer tolerated by intelligent audiences. There is a silent but no less insistent demand that a speaker waste no time in words, but give expression to his ideas with reasonable brevity.

It is surprizing how much can be said in the space of one minute by a speaker who has his subject well in hand. The most notable example in all history of short speech-making is Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, which occupied in delivery less than three minutes. At the inauguration of the new president of Harvard University, the Hon. John D. Long, president of the Board of Overseers, carried out the impressive ceremony of the day, investing President Lowell with the ceremonial emblems of the office, in a speech of three sentences, as follows:

Abbott Lawrence Lowell, you having been duly chosen to be President of Harvard College, I now, in the name of its governing bodies and in accordance with ancient custom, declare that you are vested with all the powers and privileges of that office. It is a great trust, but it is laid on you in full confidence that you will discharge it in the interest alike of the college we love and of the democracy it serves. I deliver into your hands, as badges of your authority, the college charter, seals and keys. God bless you.

This was an occasion of unusual interest, thousands of persons having gathered from all parts of the country. The temptation to make a "great speech" would have been

irresistible to most men, but President Lowell's acknowledgment occupied only a minute, in these words:

It is with a deep sense of responsibility that I receive at your hands these insignia of the office to which the governing boards have chosen me. You have charged me with a great trust, second in importance to no other, for the education of American youth, and therefore for the intellectual and moral welfare of our country.

I pray that I may be granted the wisdom, the strength, and the patience which are needed in no common measure; that Harvard may stand in the future, as she has stood under the long line of my predecessors, for the development of true manhood and for the advancement of sound learning, and that her sons may go forth with a chivalrous resolve that the world shall be better for the years they have spent within these walls.

There are primarily two things concerned in the making of a public speaker: (1) the Man, and (2) the Message. The qualifications laid down by Cicero, Quintilian, and other great authorities are too severe and comprehensive for present-day needs. We think the following are essential attributes of a good public speaker:

The message should have the three qualities of clearness, vitality, and timeliness. The attributes just indicated are a matter of acquisition rather than natural gifts. No man should be dissuaded from developing his speaking powers because he is not "a born orator." If he be afflicted with timidity, or some other shortcoming, let him take encouragement from the experience of many of the world's greatest orators. There is inspiration in the case of Demosthenes, of whom it is recorded:

In his first address to the people he was laughed at and interrupted by their clamors, for the violence of his manner threw him into a confusion of periods, and a distortion of his argument. Besides he had a weakness and a stammering in his voice, and a want of breath, which caused such a distraction in his discourse that it was difficult for the audience to understand him. At last, upon his quitting the assembly, Ennomus, the Thracian, a man now extremely old, found him wandering in a dejected condition in the Pireus, and took upon him to set him right. "You," said he, “have a manner of speaking like that of Pericles, and yet you lose yourself out of mere timidity and cowardice. You neither bear up against the tumults of a popular assembly, nor prepare your body by exercise for the labor of the rostrum, but suffer your parts to wither away by negligence and indolence." Another time, we are told, that when his speeches had been ill received, and he was going home with his head covered, and in the greatest distress, Satyrus, the player, who was an acquaintance of his, followed and went in with him. Demosthenes lamented to him that, tho he was the most laborious of all the orators, and had almost sacrificed his health to that application, yet he could gain no favor with the people; but drunken seamen and other unlettered persons were heard, and kept the rostrum, while he was entirely disregarded. "You say true," answered Satyrus; "but I will soon provide a remedy, if you will repeat to me some speech in Euripides or Sophocles." When Demosthenes had done, Satyrus pronounced the same speech, and he did it with such propriety of action, and so much in character, that it appeared to the orator quite a differ

ent passage. He now understood so well how much grace and dignity of action lend to the best oration, that he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not also attended to.

The rest is familiar to the reader, how Demosthenes built a subterranean room, went there daily to train his voice and gesture, committing to memory the substance of all the conversations and speeches he heard, disciplining and developing himself for the high place he was destined ultimately to fill. He completely overcame his natural defect of stammering and of indistinctness by practising his speeches with pebbles in his mouth, and strengthened his weak voice by reciting aloud poems and orations while running or walking up hill. Numerous illustrations of a similar character might be given to the student who aspires to proficiency in this great art. The secret does not lie so much in natural gifts as in the iron qualities of pluck and perseverance.

A man's speech reports not only the inner workings of his mind, but also his character and temperament. A public speaker should have it said of him, as Johnson said of Bacon: "His hearers could not cough or look aside without loss. Such a man makes every word count. Fully realizing that "No train of thought is strengthened by the addition of those arguments that, like camp-followers, swell the number and the noise without bearing a part in the organization," he avoids giving expression to a single superfluous thought.

Naturalness in public speaking is power expressing itself simply and without conscious effort. It arises from frankness and sincerity. It never "beats about the bush," never equivocates, but goes straight to the point without fear or question. A natural speaker does not wish to appear other

than he really is, and his modesty is a safeguard against speaking often of himself. The calm and dignified power of Abraham Lincoln was due to this underlying quality. His simplicity of speech was the natural expression of his great and tender-hearted nature. No man despised more than he even a suggestion of sham and artificiality. His clear, direct, frank, and open manner of expression was merely the outward mark of supreme genuineness. When urged to give an account of himself, he wrote these simple lines:

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-second families, perhaps, I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family by the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education. He removed to Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much.

Still,