FOR SCHOOL AND COLLEGE FIVE-MINUTE DECLAMATIONS SELECTED AND ADAFTED BY WALTER K. FOBES ELOCUTIONIST AND PULLIC READEE, AUTHOR OF "ELOCUTION FIRST PART. BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS PREFACE. No more than five minutes' time is required to declaim any piece in this book; and as five minutes is the allotted time, nowadays, in the schools and colleges, and at the prize declamations, this is a strong reason why this book should meet with favor from the declaimers of America. But there is a stronger reason. Declamations, that is, extracts from orations, speeches, sermons, make up nine tenths of the pieces spoken. This book is, therefore, all declamations. In order that a speaker may declaim well, a piece must have feeling, passion, "fire in it. Each selection in this book has been subjected to the test of reading aloud, and is a declamation in the proper sense of that term. In this little book of one hundred selections will be found a greater number of desirable pieces than in any speakers published. This is another reason why it should meet with favor. It is not claimed that the selections are all new, but that all the selections, new and old, are made available by judicious cutting down, and there are no dead pieces in the book. A book of five-minute recitations is in preparation, and also another hundred of declamations, which if demanded will be published in due time. 18 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON, Sept. 10, 1885. |