enlist the services of a literary friend, or ask the advice of a local
librarian. But in any case, be on your guard against books and other
publications of commonplace type, which can contribute nothing to the
enrichment of your mind and life.
It is desirable that you should own the books you read. The sense of
personal possession will give an interest and pleasure to your reading
which it would not otherwise have, and moreover you can freely mark such
books with your pencil for subsequent reference. It is also well to have
a note-book conveniently ready in which to jot down useful ideas as they
occur to you.
Here we come to the use of the pen. All the great orators of the world
have been prolific writers in the sense of writing out their thoughts.
It is the only certain way to clarify your thought, to test it in
advance of verbal expression and to examine it critically. The public
speaker should write much in order to form a clear and flowing English
style. It is surprising how many of our thoughts which appear to us
clear and satisfactory, assume a peculiar vagueness when we attempt to
set them down definitely in writing.
The use of the pen tends to give clearness and conciseness to the
speaker's style. It makes him careful and accurate. It aids, too, in
fixing the ideas of his speech in his mind, so that at the moment of
addressing an audience they will respond most readily to his needs.
A well-furnished mind is like a well-furnished house. In furnishing a
house we do not fill it up with miscellaneous furniture, bric-a-brac and
antiques, gathered promiscuously, but we plan everything with a view to
harmony, beauty, and utility. We furnish a particular room in a tone
that will be restful and pleasing to the occupant. We choose every piece
of furniture, rug, picture, and drapery with a distinct purpose in view
of what the total effect will be.
So with a well-furnished mind. We must choose the kind of material we
intend to keep there. It should be chosen with a view to its beauty,
power, and usefulness. We want no rubbish there. We want the best
material available. Hence the vital importance of going to the right
sources for the furniture of our mind, to the great books of the world,
to living authorities, to nature, to music, to art, to the best wherever
it may be found.
The second essential of an effective public speech is knowing how to say
it. This implies a thorough training in the technique of speech. There
should be a well-cultivated voice, of adequate volume, brilliancy, and
carrying quality. There should be ample training in articulation,
pronunciation, expression, and gesture. These so-called mechanics should
be developed until they become an unconscious part of the speaker's
style.
Your best opportunity for practice is in your everyday conversation.
There you are constantly making speeches on a small scale. Public
speaking of the best modern type is simply elevated conversation. I do
not mean elevated in pitch, but in the sense of being launched upon a
higher level of thought and with greater intensity than is usually
called for by ordinary conversation.
In conversation you have your best opportunity for developing your
public speaking style. Indeed, you are there, despite yourself, forming
habits which will disclose themselves in your public speaking. As you
speak in your daily conversation you will largely speak when you stand
before an audience.
You will therefore see the importance of care in your daily speech.
There should be a fastidious choice of words, care in pronunciation and
articulation, and the mouth well opened so that the words may come out
wholly through the mouth and not partly through the nose. Culture of
conversation is to be recommended for its own sake, since everyone must
speak in private if not in public.
One of the best plans for self-culture in speaking is to read aloud for
a few minutes every day from a book of well-selected speeches. There are
numerous compilations of the kind admirably suited to this purpose. The
important thing here is to read in speaking style, not in what is termed
reading style as usually taught in schools. When you practise in this
way it would be well to imagine an audience before you and to render the
speech as if emanating from your own mind. The student of public
speaking will wisely guard himself against acquiring an artificial style
or other mannerism.
Another good plan is to make short mental speeches while walking. When
possible it is well to choose a country road for this purpose, or a
park, or some other place where one's mind is not likely to be often
diverted by passers-by. Lord Dufferin, the eminent British orator, was
accustomed to prepare most of his speeches while riding on horseback.
The habit of forming mental speeches is a great aid to actual
speech-making, as it tends to give the mind a power and an adaptability
which it would not otherwise have.
The painter, the musician, the sculptor, the architect, and other
craftsmen search out models for study and inspiration. The public
speaker should do likewise, and history shows that the great orators of
the world have followed this practise. You can not do better than take
as your model the greatest short speech in all history, the Gettysburg
Address.
An authority on English style has critically examined this speech and
acknowledges that he cannot suggest a single change in it which would
add to its power and perfection.
You recall the circumstances under which it was written. On the morning
of November 18, 1863, Abraham Lincoln was travelling from Washington to
take part next day in the consecration of the national cemetery at
Gettysburg. He wrote his speech on a scrap of wrapping-paper, carefully
fitting word to word, changing and correcting it in minutest detail as
best he could until it was finished.
The next day after the speech had been delivered, Edward Everett, the
trained and polished orator, said that he would have been content to
have made in his oration of two hours the impression which Lincoln had
made in that many minutes.
It will repay you to study this speech closely and to wrest from it its
innermost secrets of power and effectiveness. The greatest underlying
quality of this speech is its rare simplicity--simplicity of thought,
simplicity of language, simplicity of purpose, and shining through it
all, the simplicity of the great emancipator himself.
This simplicity is one of the great distinguishing qualities of
effective public speaking. It is characteristic of all true art. It is
subtle and difficult to define, but Fénelon gives a definition that will
aid us when he says, "Simplicity is an uprightness of soul that has no
reference to self." It is another word for unselfishness.
In these days of self-exploitation and self-aggrandizement, how
refreshing it is to meet a man of true simplicity. We are won by his
unaffected manner, his gentleness of argument, his ingratiating tones of
voice, his freedom from prejudice and passion. Such a man wins us almost
wholly by the power of his simplicity.
This supreme quality is noticeable in men who are said to have come to
themselves. They have tasted and tested life, they have learned
proportion and perspective, they have appraised things at their real
value, and now they carry themselves in poise and power and confidence.
They have found themselves in a high and true sense, and they have come
to be known as men of simplicity.
Simplicity is not to be confounded with weakness or ignorance. It comes
through long education. It does not mean the trite, or the commonplace,
or the obvious. It is a strong and sturdy quality, is this simplicity of
which I am speaking, and nothing else will atone for lack of it in the
public speaker.
Longfellow calls it the supreme excellence, since it is the quality
which above all others brings serenity to the soul and makes life
really worth living. Every man should earnestly seek to cultivate this
great quality as essential to noble character.
This speech is conspicuous for another indispensable quality for
effective public speaking,--the quality of sincerity. It grows largely
out of simplicity and is the product of integrity of mind and heart. Men
recognize it quickly, though they cannot easily tell whence it comes. We
find it highly developed in great leaders in business and professional
life. There has never been a really great public speaker who was not
preeminently a sincere man.
Beecher said, "Let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator." Such a
man can not be. He will shortly be found out. The world's ultimate
estimate of a man is not far wrong.
A politician of much promise was addressing a distinguished audience in
Washington. The Opera House was crowded to the doors to hear him and
apparently he was making a good impression upon all his hearers. But
suddenly, at the very climax of his speech, while upwards of two
thousand eyes were rivetted upon him, he was seen to wink at a personal
friend of his sitting in a nearby box, and at that instant his future
political prospects were shattered as a vase struck by lightning. In
that single instant of insincerity he was appraised by that
discriminating audience and his doom was sealed.
Still another great quality in the Gettysburg speech is its directness.
The speaker had a clearly-defined purpose in view. He knew what he
wanted to say, and he proceeded to say it--no more, and no less.
There was no straying away into by-paths, no padding of words to make up
for shortage of ideas, no superfluous and big-sounding phrases, no empty
rhetoric or glittering generalities.
How many speakers there are who aim at nothing and hit it. How many
speakers there are who are on their way but do not know whither.
If this directness of quality were applied to talking in business, in
committee meetings, in telephone conversations, in public speaking, it
would save annually in this country millions of words and incalculable
time and energy.
You will note that this speech has the rare quality of conciseness. We
have an illustration here of how much a man can say in about 265 words
and in the short space of two minutes, if he knows precisely what he
wants to say.
It is well to bear in mind that although this speech was scribbled off
with seeming ease, Lincoln owed his ability to do it to a long and
painstaking study of words and English style.
He was a profound student of the dictionary. He steeped himself in
words. He scrutinized words, he studied words, he made himself a master
of words.
This is a valuable habit for every man to form,--to study words
regularly and earnestly, and to add consciously to his working
vocabulary a few words daily--so in the course of a year such a man will
acquire a large and varied stock of words which will do his instant
bidding.
The conclusion is a vital part of a speech. It is a place of peril to
many a public speaker. Countless speeches have been ruined by a bad
conclusion.
The most important thing here is that having decided beforehand upon the
particular ideas or message with which you intend to conclude your
speech, not to let any influence lead you away from this preconceived
purpose.
Some speakers are about to conclude effectively but are unwilling to
omit anything which they have planned to give in their speech, and so
continue in an endeavor to recall every item. At last such a speech has
a loose and straggling ending.
The words of the conclusion need not be memorized, but the ideas should
be definitely outlined in the mind and fixed in the memory, not as
words, but as ideas.
The knowledge that you can turn at will to these definite ideas, and so
bring your speech to a close, will confer upon you a degree of
self-confidence which will be of immense service to you.
You should ever bear in mind this golden rule for the conclusion of your
speech: When you have finished what you have of importance to say, do
not be tempted to wander off into by-paths, or to tell an additional
story, or to say "and one word more," but having finished your speech,
stop on the instant and sit down.
PRACTICAL HINTS FOR SPEAKERS
Cultivate as the most desirable thoughts those which are definite,
clear, deep, logical, profound, strong, precise, impressive, original,
significant, explicit, luminous, positive, suggestive, comprehensive,
and practical. Resolutely avoid all thoughts which are uncertain,
recondite, obscure, immature, unimportant, shallow, weak, visionary,
absurd, vague, extravagant, indefinite, or impractical.
In your choice and use of words give preference to those which are
definite, simple, real, significant, forcible, expressive, adequate,
musical, varied, and copious. Avoid those which are foreign, slangy,
obsolete, unusual, extravagant, technical, long, colloquial, or
commonplace.
The most desirable qualities in the use of English are the simple,
plain, exact, lucid, concise, trenchant, vigorous, impressive, lively,
figurative, polished, graceful, fluent, rhythmical, copious, elevated,
flexible, smooth, dignified, terse, epigrammatic, felicitous,
euphonious, elegant, and lofty. Undesirable qualities are the diffuse,
verbose, redundant, inflated, prolix, ambiguous, feeble, monotonous,
loose, slip-shod, dry, flowery, pedantic, pompous, rhetorical,
grandiloquent, artificial, formal, ornate, halting, ponderous,
ungrammatical, vague, and obscure.
The qualities you should develop in your speaking voice are the pure,
deep, round, flexible, resonant, musical, clear, sympathetic, smooth,
sonorous, powerful, silvery, melodious, full, strong, natural, mellow,
magnetic, expressive, carrying, and responsive. Endeavor to keep your
voice free from such undesirable qualities as the harsh, breathy, sharp,
rough, rigid, throaty, guttural, thin, shrill, nasal, unmusical,
discordant, muffled, explosive, strained, inaudible, hollow, strident,
sepulchral, and tremulous.
Your articulation should be clear, distinct, and correct. Avoid
carelessness, lifelessness, mumbling, weakness, and exaggeration.
Your pronunciation should be clear-cut and accurate. Avoid mouthing,
lisping, hesitation, stammering, pedantry, omission of syllables, and
suppression of final consonants.
Your delivery in public speaking should be simple, sincere, natural,
varied, magnetic, earnest, forceful, attractive, energetic, animated,
sympathetic, authoritative, dignified, direct, impressive, vivid,
convincing, persuasive, zealous, enthusiastic, and inspiring. Avoid that
which is timid, familiar, violent, cold, indifferent, unreal,
artificial, dull, sing-song, hesitating, feeble, unconvincing,
apathetic, monotonous, pompous, formal, arbitrary, flippant,
ostentatious, drawling, or languid.
Your gesture should be graceful, appropriate, free, forceful, and
natural. Avoid all gesture which is unmeaning, angular, abrupt,
constrained, stilted, or amateurish.
Your facial expression should be varied, appropriate, pleasing, and
impassioned. Avoid the unpleasant, immobile, and unvaried.
Let your standing position be manly, erect, easy, forceful, and
impressive. Avoid that which is weak, shifting, stiff, inactive, and
ungainly.
THE DRAMATIC ELEMENT IN SPEAKING
There is a well-defined prejudice against the importation of anything
"theatrical" into the pulpit. The art of the actor is fundamentally
different from the work of the preacher. At best the actor but
represents, imitates, pretends, acts. The actor seems; the preacher is.
It is to be feared, however, that this prejudice has narrowed many
preachers down to a pulpit style almost devoid of warmth and action. In
their endeavor to avoid the dramatic and sensational, they have refined
and subdued many of their most natural and effective means of
expression. The function of preaching is not only to impart, but to
persuade; and persuasion demands something more than an easy
conversational style, an intellectual statement of facts, or the reading
of a written message. The speaker must show in face, in eye, in arm, in
the whole animated man, that he, himself, is moved, before he can hope
successfully to persuade and inspire others.
The modified movements of ordinary conversation do not fulfil all the
requirements of the preacher. These are necessary and adequate for the
groundwork of the sermon, but for the supreme heights of passionate
appeal, when the soul of the preacher would, as it were, leap from its
body in the endeavor to reach men, there must be intensified life and
action--dramatic action.
It is difficult to conceive of a greater tribute to a public advocate
than that paid to Wendell Phillips by George William Curtis:
"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.'"
Poise is power, and reserve and repression are parts of the dignified
office of the preacher, but carried too far may degenerate into weak and
unproductive effort. Perfection of English style, rhetorical floridness,
and profundity of thought will never wholly make up for lack of
appropriate action in the work of persuading men.
The power of action alone is vividly illustrated in the touch of the
finger to the lips to invoke silence, or the pointing to the door to
command one to leave the room. The preacher might often find it
profitable to stand before a mirror and deliver his sermon exclusively
in pantomime to test its power and efficacy.
The body must be disciplined and cultivated as assiduously as the other
instruments of the speaker. There is eloquence of attitude and action no
less than eloquence of voice and feeling. A preacher drawing himself up
to his full height, with a significant gesture of the head, or with
flashing eye pointing the finger of warning at his hearers, may rouse
them from indifference when all other means fail.
Sixty years ago the Reverend William Russell emphasized the importance
of visible expression. He said of the preacher:
"His outward manner, in attitude and action, will be as various as his
voice: he will evince the inspiration of appropriate feeling in the
very posture of his frame; in uttering the language of adoration, the
slow-moving, uplifted hand will bespeak the awe and solemnity which
pervade his soul; in addressing his fellow men in the spirit of an
ambassador of Christ, the gentle yet earnest spirit of persuasive action
will be evinced in the pleading hand and aspect; he will know, also, how
to pass to the stern and authoritative mien of the reproved of sin; he
will, on due occasions, indicate, in his kindling look, the rousing
gesture, the mood of him who is empowered and commanded to summon forth
all the energies of the human soul; his subdued and chastened address
will carry the sympathy of his spirit into the bosom of the mourner; his
moistening eye and his gentle action will manifest his tenderness for
the suffering: his whole soul will, in a word, become legible in his
features, in his attitude, in the expressive eloquence of his hand; his
whole style will be felt to be that of heart communing with heart."
Dramatic action gives picturesqueness to the spoken word. It makes
things vivid to slow imaginations, and by contrast invests the
speaker's message with new meaning and vitality. It discloses, too, the
speaker's sympathy and identification with his subject. His thought and
feeling, communicating themselves to voice and face, to hand and arm, to
posture and walk, satisfy and impress the hearer by a sense of adequacy
and completeness.
Henry Ward Beecher, a conspicuous example of the dramatic style in
preaching, was drilled for three years, while at college, in
voice-culture, gesture, and action. His daily practise in the woods,
during which he exploded all the vowels from the bottom to the top of
his voice, gave him not only a wonderfully responsive and flexible
instrument, but a freedom of bodily movement that made him one of the
most vigorous and virile of American preachers. He was in the highest
sense a persuasive pulpit orator.
A sensible preacher will avoid the grotesque and the extremes of mere
animal vivacity. Incessant gesture and action, undue emphasizing with
hand and head, and all suggestion of self-sufficiency in attitude or
manner should be guarded against. All the various instruments of
expression should be made ready and responsive for immediate use, but
are to be employed with that taste and tact that characterize the
well-balanced man. Too much action and long-continued emotional effort
lose force, and unless the law of action and reaction is applied to the
preaching of the sermon the attention of the congregation may snap and
the desired effect be utterly destroyed.
The face as the mirror of the emotions is an important part of
expression. The lips will betray determination, grief, sympathy,
affection, or other feeling on the part of the speaker. The eyes, the
most direct medium of psychic power, will flash in indignation, glisten
in joy, or grow dim in sorrow. The brow will be elevated in surprise, or
lowered in determination and perplexity.
The effectiveness of the whisper in preaching should not be overlooked.
If discreetly used it may serve to impress the hearer with the
profundity and seriousness of the preacher's message, or to arrest and
bring back to the point of contact the wandering minds of a
congregation.
To acquire emotional power and dramatic action the preacher should
study the great dramatists. He should read them aloud with appropriate
voice and movement. He should study children, and men, and nature. He
should, perhaps, see the best actors, not to copy them, but in order
that they may stimulate his taste and imagination.
CONVERSATION AND PUBLIC SPEAKING
The ideal style of public speaking is, with very little modification,
the ideal of good conversation. The practical age in which we live
demands a colloquial rather than an oratorical style of public speaking.
A man who has something to say in conversation usually has little
difficulty in saying it. If he presents the facts he will speak
convincingly; if he is deeply in earnest he will speak persuasively; and
if he be an educated man his speech will have the unmistakable marks of
culture and refinement.
In the conversation of well-bred children we find the most interesting
and helpful illustrations of unaffected speech. The exquisite modulation
of the voice, the unstudied correctness of emphasis, and the sincerity
and depth of feeling might well serve as a model for older speakers.
This study of conversation, both our own and that of others, offers
daily opportunity for improvement in accuracy and fluency of speech, of
fitting words to the mouth as well as to the thought, and of forming
habits that will unconsciously disclose themselves in the larger work of
public speaking. Care in conversation will guard the public speaker from
inflated and unnatural tones, and restrain him from transgressing the
laws of nature even in those parts of his speech demanding lofty and
intensified treatment.
Some easily remembered suggestions regarding conversation are these:
1. Pronounce your words distinctly and accurately, like "newly made
coins" from the mint, but without pedantry.
2. Upon no occasion allow yourself to indulge in careless or incorrect
speech.
3. Open the mouth well in conversation. Much indistinct speech is due to
speaking through half-closed teeth.
4. Closely observe your conversation and that of others, to detect
faults and to improve your speaking-style.
5. Vary your voice to suit the variety of your thought. A well-modulated
voice demands appropriate changes of pitch, force, perspective, and
feeling.
6. Avoid loud talking.
7. Take care of the consonants and the vowels will take care of
themselves.
8. Cultivate the music of the conversational tones.
9. Favor the low pitches of your voice.
10. Remember that the purpose of conscious practise and observation in
the matter of conversation is to lead ultimately to unconscious
performance.