There is no better way for you to improve your own public speaking than
to analyze and study the speeches of successful orators.
First read such speeches aloud, since by that means you fit words to
your lips and acquire a familiarity with oratorical style.
Then examine the speaker's method of arranging his thoughts, and the
precise way in which they lead up and contribute to his ultimate object.
Carefully note any special means employed--story, illustration, appeal,
or climax,--to increase the effectiveness of the speech.
_John Stuart Mill_
Read the following speech delivered by John Stuart Mill, in his tribute
to Garrison. Note the clear-cut English of the speaker. Observe how
promptly he goes to his subject, and how steadily he keeps to it.
Particularly note the high level of thought maintained throughout. This
is an excellent model of dignified, well-reasoned, convincing speech.
"Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,--The speakers who have preceded me
have, with an eloquence far beyond anything which I can command, laid
before our honored guest the homage of admiration and gratitude which we
all feel due to his heroic life. Instead of idly expatiating upon things
which have been far better said than I could say them, I would rather
endeavor to recall one or two lessons applicable to ourselves, which
may be drawn from his career. A noble work nobly done always contains in
itself not one but many lessons; and in the case of him whose character
and deeds we are here to commemorate, two may be singled out specially
deserving to be laid to heart by all who would wish to leave the world
better than they found it.
"The first lesson is,--Aim at something great; aim at things which are
difficult; and there is no great thing which is not difficult. Do not
pare down your undertaking to what you can hope to see successful in the
next few years, or in the years of your own life. Fear not the reproach
of Quixotism or of fanaticism; but after you have well weighed what you
undertake, if you see your way clearly, and are convinced that you are
right, go forward, even tho you, like Mr. Garrison, do it at the risk
of being torn to pieces by the very men through whose changed hearts
your purpose will one day be accomplished. Fight on with all your
strength against whatever odds and with however small a band of
supporters. If you are right, the time will come when that small band
will swell into a multitude; you will at least lay the foundations of
something memorable, and you may, like Mr. Garrison--tho you ought not
to need or expect so great a reward--be spared to see that work
completed which, when you began it, you only hoped it might be given to
you to help forward a few stages on its way.
"The other lesson which it appears to me important to enforce, amongst
the many that may be drawn from our friend's life, is this: If you aim
at something noble and succeed in it, you will generally find that you
have succeeded not in that alone. A hundred other good and noble things
which you never dreamed of will have been accomplished by the way, and
the more certainly, the sharper and more agonizing has been the struggle
which preceded the victory. The heart and mind of a nation are never
stirred from their foundations without manifold good fruits. In the case
of the great American contest these fruits have been already great, and
are daily becoming greater. The prejudices which beset every form of
society--and of which there was a plentiful crop in America--are rapidly
melting away. The chains of prescription have been broken; it is not
only the slave who has been freed--the mind of America has been
emancipated. The whole intellect of the country has been set thinking
about the fundamental questions of society and government; and the new
problems which have to be solved and the new difficulties which have to
be encountered are calling forth new activity of thought, and that great
nation is saved probably for a long time to come, from the most
formidable danger of a completely settled state of society and
opinion--intellectual and moral stagnation. This, then, is an additional
item of the debt which America and mankind owe to Mr. Garrison and his
noble associates; and it is well calculated to deepen our sense of the
truth which his whole career most strikingly illustrates--that tho our
best directed efforts may often seem wasted and lost, nothing coming of
them that can be pointed to and distinctly identified as a definite gain
to humanity, tho this may happen ninety-nine times in every hundred, the
hundredth time the result may be so great and dazzling that we had
never dared to hope for it, and should have regarded him who had
predicted it to us as sanguine beyond the bounds of mental sanity. So
has it been with Mr. Garrison."
It will be beneficial for your all-round development in speaking to
choose for earnest study several speeches of widely different character.
As you compare one speech with another, you will more readily see why
each subject requires a different form of treatment, and also learn to
judge how the speaker has availed himself of the possibilities afforded
him.
_Judge Story_
The speech which follows is a fine example of elevated and impassioned
oratory. Judge Story here lauds the American Republic, and employs to
advantage the rhetorical figures of exclamation and interrogation.
As you examine this speech you will notice that the speaker himself was
moved by deep conviction. His own belief stamped itself upon his words,
and throughout there is the unmistakable mark of sincerity.
You are impressed by the comprehensive treatment of the subject. The
orator here speaks out of a full mind, and you feel that you would
confidently trust yourself to his leadership.
"When we reflect on what has been and what is, how is it possible not to
feel a profound sense of the responsibilities of this Republic to all
future ages? What vast motives press upon us for lofty efforts! What
brilliant prospects invite our enthusiasm! What solemn warnings at once
demand our vigilance and moderate our confidence! The Old World has
already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the beginning and the
end of all marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty.
"Greece! lovely Greece! 'the land of scholars and the nurse of arms,'
where sister republics, in fair processions chanted the praise of
liberty and the good, where and what is she? For two thousand years the
oppressors have bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last
sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery;
the fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet
beautiful in ruins.
"She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons united at
Thermopylæ and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon
the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions--she fell by the
hands of her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of
destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments,
and dissensions. Rome! whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting
sun, where and what is she! The Eternal City yet remains, proud even in
her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of
religion, and calm as in the composure of death.
"The malaria has but traveled in the parts won by the destroyers. More
than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of the empire. A
mortal disease was upon her before Cæsar had crossed the Rubicon; and
Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the
senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the
North, completed only what was begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The
legions were bought and sold, but the people offered the tribute-money.
"And where are the republics of modern times, which cluster around
immortal Italy? Venice and Genoa exist but in name. The Alps, indeed,
look down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss in their native fastnesses;
but the guaranty of their freedom is in their weakness, and not in their
strength. The mountains are not easily crossed, and the valleys are not
easily retained.
"When the invader comes, he moves like an avalanche, carrying
destruction in his path. The peasantry sink before him. The country,
too, is too poor for plunder, and too rough for a valuable conquest.
Nature presents her eternal barrier on every side, to check the
wantonness of ambition. And Switzerland remains with her simple
institutions, a military road to climates scarcely worth a permanent
possession, and protected by the jealousy of her neighbors.
"We stand the latest, and if we fall, probably the last experiment of
self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of
the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has
never been checked by the oppression of tyranny. Our Constitutions never
have been enfeebled by the vice or the luxuries of the world. Such as we
are, we have been from the beginning: simple, hardy, intelligent,
accustomed to self-government and self-respect.
"The Atlantic rolls between us and a formidable foe. Within our own
territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude, we have the
choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government
is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may
reach every home. What fairer prospects of success could be presented?
What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is
necessary than for the people to preserve what they themselves have
created?
"Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has
already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It
has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny
plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the
philosophy of Germany and the North, and, moving onward to the South,
has opened to Greece the lesson of her better days.
"Can it be that America under such circumstances should betray herself?
That she is to be added to the catalog of republics, the inscription
upon whose ruin is, 'They were but they are not!' Forbid it, my
countrymen! forbid it, Heaven! I call upon you, fathers, by the shades
of your ancestors, by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil,
by all you are, and all you hope to be, resist every attempt to fetter
your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your
system of public instruction.
"I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love
of your offspring, to teach them as they climb your knees or lean on
your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with
their baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never forsake
her. I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are--whose
inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings
nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if
necessary, in defense of the liberties of our country."
You can advantageously read aloud many times a speech like the
foregoing. Stand up and read it aloud once a day for a month, and you
will be conscious of a distinct improvement in your own command of
persuasive speech.
_W. J. Fox_
The following is a specimen of masterly oratorical style, from a sermon
preached in London, England, by W. J. Fox:
"From the dawn of intellect and freedom Greece has been a watchword on
the earth. There rose the social spirit to soften and refine her chosen
race, and shelter as in a nest her gentleness from the rushing storm of
barbarism; there liberty first built her mountain throne, first called
the waves her own, and shouted across them a proud defiance to
despotism's banded myriads, there the arts and graces danced around
humanity, and stored man's home with comforts, and strewed his path
with roses, and bound his brows with myrtle, and fashioned for him the
breathing statue, and summoned him to temples of snowy marble, and
charmed his senses with all forms of eloquence, and threw over his final
sleep their veil of loveliness; there sprung poetry, like their own
fabled goddess, mature at once from the teeming intellect, gilt with
arts and armour that defy the assaults of time and subdue the heart of
man; there matchless orators gave the world a model of perfect
eloquence, the soul the instrument on which they played, and every
passion of our nature but a tone which the master's touch called forth
at will; there lived and taught the philosophers of bower and porch, of
pride and pleasure, of deep speculation, and of useful action, who
developed all the acuteness and refinement, and excursiveness, and
energy of mind, and were the glory of their country when their country
was the glory of the earth."
_William McKinley_
An eloquent speech, worthy of close study, is that of William McKinley
on "The Characteristics of Washington." As you read it aloud, note the
short, clear-cut sentences used in the introduction. Observe how the
long sentence at the third paragraph gives the needed variation.
Carefully study the compact English style, and the use of forceful
expressions of the speaker, as "He blazed the path to liberty."
"Fellow Citizens:--There is a peculiar and tender sentiment connected
with this memorial. It expresses not only the gratitude and reverence of
the living, but is a testimonial of affection and homage from the dead.
"The comrades of Washington projected this monument. Their love inspired
it. Their contributions helped to build it. Past and present share in
its completion, and future generations will profit by its lessons. To
participate in the dedication of such a monument is a rare and precious
privilege. Every monument to Washington is a tribute to patriotism.
Every shaft and statue to his memory helps to inculcate love of country,
encourage loyalty, and establish a better citizenship. God bless every
undertaking which revives patriotism and rebukes the indifferent and
lawless! A critical study of Washington's career only enhances our
estimation of his vast and varied abilities.
"As Commander-in-chief of the Colonial armies from the beginning of the
war to the proclamation of peace, as president of the convention which
framed the Constitution of the United States, and as the first President
of the United States under that Constitution, Washington has a
distinction differing from that of all other illustrious Americans. No
other name bears or can bear such a relation to the Government. Not only
by his military genius--his patience, his sagacity, his courage, and his
skill--was our national independence won, but he helped in largest
measure to draft the chart by which the Nation was guided; and he was
the first chosen of the people to put in motion the new Government. His
was not the boldness of martial display or the charm of captivating
oratory, but his calm and steady judgment won men's support and
commanded their confidence by appealing to their best and noblest
aspirations. And withal Washington was ever so modest that at no time
in his career did his personality seem in the least intrusive. He was
above the temptation of power. He spurned the suggested crown. He would
have no honor which the people did not bestow.
"An interesting fact--and one which I love to recall--is that the only
time Washington formally addrest the Constitutional Convention during
all its sessions over which he presided in this city, he appealed for a
larger representation of the people in the National House of
Representatives, and his appeal was instantly heeded. Thus was he ever
keenly watchful of the rights of the people in whose hands was the
destiny of our Government then as now.
"Masterful as were his military campaigns, his civil administration
commands equal admiration. His foresight was marvelous; his conception
of the philosophy of government, his insistence upon the necessity of
education, morality, and enlightened citizenship to the progress and
permanence of the Republic can not be contemplated even at this period
without filling us with astonishment at the breadth of his comprehension
and the sweep of his vision. His was no narrow view of government. The
immediate present was not the sole concern, but our future good his
constant theme of study. He blazed the path of liberty. He laid the
foundation upon which we have grown from weak and scattered Colonial
governments to a united Republic whose domains and power as well as
whose liberty and freedom have become the admiration of the world.
Distance and time have not detracted from the fame and force of his
achievements or diminished the grandeur of his life and work. Great
deeds do not stop in their growth, and those of Washington will expand
in influence in all the centuries to follow.
"The bequest Washington has made to civilization is rich beyond
computation. The obligations under which he has placed mankind are
sacred and commanding. The responsibility he has left, for the American
people to preserve and perfect what he accomplished, is exacting and
solemn. Let us rejoice in every new evidence that the people realize
what they enjoy, and cherish with affection the illustrious heroes of
Revolutionary story whose valor and sacrifices made us a nation. They
live in us, and their memory will help us keep the covenant entered into
for the maintenance of the freest Government of earth.
"The nation and the name Washington are inseparable. One is linked
indissolubly with the other. Both are glorious, both triumphant.
Washington lives and will live because of what he did for the exaltation
of man, the enthronement of conscience, and the establishment of a
Government which recognizes all the governed. And so, too, will the
Nation live victorious over all obstacles, adhering to the immortal
principles which Washington taught and Lincoln sustained."
_Edward Everett_
The following extract from "The Foundation of National Character," by
Edward Everett, is a fine example of patriotic appeal. Read it aloud,
and note how the orator speaks with deep feeling and stirs the same
feeling in you. This impression is largely due to the simple, sincere,
right-onward style of the speaker,--qualities of his own well-known
character.
It will amply repay you to read this extract aloud at least once a day
for a week or more, so that its superior elements of thought and style
may be deeply imprest on your mind.
"How is the spirit of a free people to be formed, and animated, and
cheered, but out of the storehouse of its historic recollections? Are we
to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermopylæ; and
going back to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin, of the exemplars
of patriotic virtue?
"I thank God that we can find them nearer home, in our own soil; that
strains of the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man,
are breathing to us out of every page of our country's history, in the
native eloquence of our mother-tongue,--that the colonial and
provincial councils of America exhibit to us models of the spirits and
character which gave Greece and Rome their name and their praise among
nations.
"Here we ought to go for our instruction;--the lesson is plain, it is
clear, it is applicable. When we go to ancient history, we are
bewildered with the difference of manners and institutions. We are
willing to pay our tribute of applause to the memory of Leonidas, who
fell nobly for his country in the face of his foe.
"But when we trace him to his home, we are confounded at the reflection,
that the same Spartan heroism, to which he sacrificed himself at
Thermopylæ, would have led him to tear his own child, if it had happened
to be a sickly babe,--the very object for which all that is kind and
good in man rises up to plead,--from the bosom of his mother, and carry
it out to be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus.
"We feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at Marathon by
the ten thousand champions of invaded Greece; but we can not forget that
the tenth part of the number were slaves, unchained from the workshops
and doorposts of their masters, to go and fight the battles of freedom.
"I do not mean that these examples are to destroy the interest with
which we read the history of ancient times; they possibly increase that
interest by the very contrast they exhibit. But they warn us, if we need
the warning, to seek our great practical lessons of patriotism at home;
out of the exploits and sacrifices of which our own country is the
theater; out of the characters of our own fathers.
"Them we know,--the high-souled, natural, unaffected, the citizen
heroes. We know what happy firesides they left for the cheerless camp.
We know with what pacific habits they dared the perils of the field.
There is no mystery, no romance, no madness, under the name of chivalry
about them. It is all resolute, manly resistance for conscience and
liberty's sake not merely of an overwhelming power, but of all the force
of long-rooted habits and native love of order and peace.
"Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we tread; it
beats in our veins; it cries to us not merely in the thrilling words of
one of the first victims in this cause--'My sons, scorn to be
slaves!'--but it cries with a still more moving eloquence--'My sons,
forget not your fathers!'"
_John Quincy Adams_
John Quincy Adams, in his speech on "The Life and Character of
Lafayette," gives us a fine example of elevated and serious-minded
utterance. The following extract from this speech can be studied with
profit. Particularly note the use of sustained sentences, and the happy
collocation of words. The concluding paragraph should be closely
examined as a study in impressive climax.
"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not
done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to
stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the
men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all
ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon, from the
creation of the world to this day, the mighty dead of every age and
every clime,--and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one
be found who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take
precedence of Lafayette?
"There have doubtless been in all ages men whose discoveries or
inventions in the world of matter, or of mind, have opened new avenues
to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his
means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer
approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his
hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.
"Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He
invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws
of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal nobility,
under the most absolute monarchy of Europe; in possession of an
affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities, at
the moment of attaining manhood the principle of republican justice and
of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by
inspiration from above.
"He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his
towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of Liberty. He
came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most
effective champions of our independence; but, that once achieved, he
returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the
controversies which have divided us.
"In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of policy which we
have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom,
Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add
nothing to it. He would gladly have abstracted nothing from it. Instead
of the imaginary Republic of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, he
took a practical existing model in actual operation here, and never
attempted or wished more than to apply it faithfully to his own country.
"It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land; but he saw it
from the summit of Pisgah. It was not given to Lafayette to witness the
consummation of his wishes in the establishment of a Republic and the
extinction of all hereditary rule in France. His principles were in
advance of the age and hemisphere in which he lived.... The prejudices
and passions of the people of France rejected the principle of inherited
power in every station of public trust, excepting the first and highest
of them all; but there they clung to it, as did the Israelites of old
to the savory deities of Egypt.
"When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all
the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be
considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust
committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it
came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be
abused;--then will be the time for contemplating the character of
Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full
development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations,
of the labors, and perils, and sacrifices of his long and eventful
career upon earth; and thenceforward till the hour when the trumpet of
the Archangel shall sound to announce that time shall be no more, the
name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race high
on the list of pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind."
I have selected these extracts for your convenient use, as embodying
both thought and style worthy of your careful study. Read them aloud at
every opportunity, and you will be gratified at the steady improvement
such practise will make in your own speaking power.