The Art of Public Speaking
history. Authors lead us back along the pathway of law, of
liberty or religion, and set us down in front of the great man in
whose brain the principle had its rise. As the discoverer leads
us from the mouth of the Nile back to the headwaters of Nyanza,
so books exhibit great ideas and institutions, as they move
forward, ever widening and deepening, like some Nile feeding many
civilizations. For all the reforms of to-day go back to some
reform of yesterday. Man's art goes back to Athens and Thebes.
Man's laws go back to Blackstone and Justinian. Man's reapers and
plows go back to the savage scratching the ground with his forked
stick, drawn by the wild bullock. The heroes of liberty march
forward in a solid column. Lincoln grasps the hand of Washington.
Washington received his weapons at the hands of Hampden and
Cromwell. The great Puritans lock hands with Luther and
Savonarola.
The unbroken procession brings us at length to Him whose Sermon
on the Mount was the very charter of liberty. It puts us under a
divine spell to perceive that we are all coworkers with the great
men, and yet single threads in the warp and woof of civilization.
And when books have related us to our own age, and related all
the epochs to God, whose providence is the gulf stream of
history, these teachers go on to stimulate us to new and greater
achievements. Alone, man is an unlighted candle. The mind needs
some book to kindle its faculties. Before Byron began to write he
used to give half an hour to reading some favorite passage. The
thought of some great writer never failed to kindle Byron into a
creative glow, even as a match lights the kindlings upon the
grate. In these burning, luminous moods Byron's mind did its best
work. The true book stimulates the mind as no wine can ever
quicken the blood. It is reading that brings us to our best, and
rouses each faculty to its most vigorous life.
We recognize this as pure cream, and if it seems at first to have its
secondary source in the friendly milkman, let us not forget that the
theme is "The Uses of Books and Reading." Dr. Hillis both sees and
thinks.
It is fashionable just now to decry the value of reading. We read, we
are told, to avoid the necessity of thinking for ourselves. Books are
for the mentally lazy.
Though this is only a half-truth, the element of truth it contains
is large enough to make us pause. Put yourself through a good
old Presbyterian soul-searching self-examination, and if
reading-from-thought-laziness is one of your sins, confess it. No one
can shrive you of it--but yourself. Do penance for it by using your
own brains, for it is a transgression that dwarfs the growth of thought
and destroys mental freedom. At first the penance will be trying--but
at the last you will be glad in it.
Reading should entertain, give information, or stimulate thought. Here,
however, we are chiefly concerned with information, and stimulation of
thought.
What shall I read for information?
The ample page of knowledge, as Grey tells us, is "rich with the spoils
of time," and these are ours for the price of a theatre ticket. You may
command Socrates and Marcus Aurelius to sit beside you and discourse of
their choicest, hear Lincoln at Gettysburg and Pericles at Athens, storm
the Bastile with Hugo, and wander through Paradise with Dante. You may
explore darkest Africa with Stanley, penetrate the human heart with
Shakespeare, chat with Carlyle about heroes, and delve with the Apostle
Paul into the mysteries of faith. The general knowledge and the
inspiring ideas that men have collected through ages of toil and
experiment are yours for the asking. The Sage of Chelsea was right: "The
true university of these days is a collection of books."
To master a worth-while book is to master much else besides; few of us,
however, make perfect conquest of a volume without first owning it
physically. To read a borrowed book may be a joy, but to assign your own
book a place of its own on your own shelves--be they few or many--to
love the book and feel of its worn cover, to thumb it over slowly, page
by page, to pencil its margins in agreement or in protest, to smile or
thrill with its remembered pungencies--no mere book borrower could ever
sense all that delight.
The reader who possesses books in this double sense finds also that his
books possess him, and the volumes which most firmly grip his life are
likely to be those it has cost him some sacrifice to own. These
lightly-come-by titles, which Mr. Fatpurse selects, perhaps by proxy,
can scarcely play the guide, philosopher and friend in crucial moments
as do the books--long coveted, joyously attained--that are welcomed into
the lives, and not merely the libraries, of us others who are at once
poorer and richer.
So it is scarcely too much to say that of all the many ways in which an
owned--a mastered--book is like to a human friend, the truest ways are
these: A friend is worth making sacrifices for, both to gain and to
keep; and our loves go out most dearly to those into whose inmost lives
we have sincerely entered.
When you have not the advantage of the test of time by which to judge
books, investigate as thoroughly as possible the authority of the books
you read. Much that is printed and passes current is counterfeit. "I
read it in a book" is to many a sufficient warranty of truth, but not to
the thinker. "What book?" asks the careful mind. "Who wrote it? What
does he know about the subject and what right has he to speak on it? Who
recognizes him as authority? With what other recognized authorities does
he agree or disagree?" Being caught trying to pass counterfeit money,
even unintentionally, is an unpleasant situation. Beware lest you
circulate spurious coin.
Above all, seek reading that makes you use your own brains. Such reading
must be alive with fresh points of view, packed with special knowledge,
and deal with subjects of vital interest. Do not confine your reading to
what you already know you will agree with. Opposition wakes one up. The
other road may be the better, but you will never know it unless you
"give it the once over." Do not do all your thinking and investigating
in front of given "Q.E.D.'s;" merely assembling reasons to fill in
between your theorem and what you want to prove will get you nowhere.
Approach each subject with an open mind and--once sure that you have
thought it out thoroughly and honestly--have the courage to abide by the
decision of your own thought. But don't brag about it afterward.
No book on public speaking will enable you to discourse on the tariff if
you know nothing about the tariff. Knowing more about it than the other
man will be your only hope for making the other man listen to you.
Take a group of men discussing a governmental policy of which some one
says: "It is socialistic." That will commend the policy to Mr. A., who
believes in socialism, but condemn it to Mr. B., who does not. It may be
that neither had considered the policy beyond noticing that its
surface-color was socialistic. The chances are, furthermore, that
neither Mr. A. nor Mr. B. has a definite idea of what socialism really
is, for as Robert Louis Stevenson says, "Man lives not by bread alone
but chiefly by catch words." If you are of this group of men, and have
observed this proposed government policy, and investigated it, and
thought about it, what you have to say cannot fail to command their
respect and approval, for you will have shown them that you possess a
grasp of your subject and--to adopt an exceedingly expressive bit of
slang--_then_ some.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Robert Houdin trained his son to give one swift glance at a shop
window in passing and be able to report accurately a surprising number
of its contents. Try this several times on different windows and report
the result.
2. What effect does reserve power have on an audience?
3. What are the best methods for acquiring reserve power?
4. What is the danger of too much reading?
5. Analyze some speech that you have read or heard and notice how much
real information there is in it. Compare it with Dr. Hillis's speech on
"Brave Little Belgium," page 394.
6. Write out a three-minute speech on any subject you choose. How much
information, and what new ideas, does it contain? Compare your speech
with the extract on page 191 from Dr. Hillis's "The Uses of Books and
Reading."
7. Have you ever read a book on the practise of thinking? If so, give
your impressions of its value.
NOTE: There are a number of excellent books on the subject of thought
and the management of thought. The following are recommended as being
especially helpful: "Thinking and Learning to Think," Nathan C.
Schaeffer; "Talks to Students on the Art of Study," Cramer; "As a Man
Thinketh," Allen.
8. Define (_a_) logic; (_b_) mental philosophy (or mental science);
(_c_) psychology; (_d_) abstract.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: _How to Attract and Hold an Audience_, J. Berg Esenwein.]
[Footnote 9: Used by permission.]
CHAPTER XVIII
SUBJECT AND PREPARATION
Suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
--BYRON, _Hints from Horace_.
Look to this day, for it is life--the very life of life. In its
brief course lie all the verities and realities of your
existence: the bliss of growth, the glory of action, the
splendor of beauty. For yesterday is already a dream and
tomorrow is only a vision; but today, well lived, makes every
yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of
hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. Such is the salutation
of the dawn.
--_From the Sanskrit_.
In the chapter preceding we have seen the influence of "Thought and
Reserve Power" on general preparedness for public speech. But
preparation consists in something more definite than the cultivation of
thought-power, whether from original or from borrowed sources--it
involves a _specifically_ acquisitive attitude of the whole life. If you
would become a full soul you must constantly take in and assimilate, for
in that way only may you hope to give out that which is worth the
hearing; but do not confuse the acquisition of general information with
the mastery of specific knowledge. Information consists of a fact or a
group of facts; knowledge is _organized_ information--knowledge knows a
fact in relation to other facts.
Now the important thing here is that you should set all your faculties
to take in the things about you with the particular object of
correlating them and storing them for use in public speech. You must
hear with the speaker's ear, see with the speaker's eye, and choose
books and companions and sights and sounds with the speaker's purpose in
view. At the same time, be ready to receive unplanned-for knowledge. One
of the fascinating elements in your life as a public speaker will be the
conscious growth in power that casual daily experiences bring. If your
eyes are alert you will be constantly discovering facts, illustrations,
and ideas without having set out in search of them. These all may be
turned to account on the platform; even the leaden events of hum-drum
daily life may be melted into bullets for future battles.
_Conservation of Time in Preparation_
But, you say, I have so little time for preparation--my mind must be
absorbed by other matters. Daniel Webster never let an opportunity pass
to gather material for his speeches. When he was a boy working in a
sawmill he read out of a book in one hand and busied himself at some