chance order or no order at all. At any rate do much oral practice alone. No one ever became an effective speaker without actually speaking. ASSIGNMENT OF WORK FOR FIVE DAYS The written exercises in this entire lesson should be carefully worked out. Keep copies of the written exercises in your notebook. First Day. You have read through the first lesson. Now study it again carefully, mastering its contents. Do not attempt any of the special exercises in the first or second reading. Second Day.-Write the exercises in connection with the Beecher speech (p. 7), and criticize carefully your own work; then rewrite it. Practice in your own words the oral reproduction of the Beecher speech. Third Day.-Do the exercises in connection with the Grady speech (p. 9). Prepare carefully the outline and amplification of the Grady speech and criticize and rewrite as sug gested in the work for the second day. Fourth Day.-Fill out orally the outlines given which begin with the character of Washington (p. 12). Make similar outlines for matters of current interest which you read about and concerning which you have formed opinions. Fifth Day.-Outline and criticize some speech you have heard. Remember that criticism means appreciation as well as adverse comment. It is hoped that this lesson has impressed you with the value of organized thought and given you suggestions which will start you in the direction of a better organization of your own thoughts. The second lesson will take a nominating speech for its model and show how a long speech is made up of certain great divisions, each one of which contains its thought groups. TEST QUESTIONS These questions are for the student to use in testing his knowledge of the principles in this lesson. They are suggestive merely, dealing largely with the practical application of the principles, and are to be placed in the notebook for future reference. 1. State what efficiency is. Give the best illustration of it you know. 2. Why is effective a better word than efficient to apply to public speaking? 3. What is the most effective speech you have ever heard? Why? 4. What benefits of "grouping ideas" are discussed in the lesson ? 5. What are the four qualities of good speaking the student should develop? 6. What is meant by the expression "develop one idea at a time"? 7. What does Beecher's paragraph on "The Germanic and the Romanic Races" illustrate as to the grouping of ideas? 8. What four ideas does Lincoln "develop one at a time" about Henry Clay? 9. What are the main headings of an address you have recently heard? 10. In Henry W. Grady's paragraph, what are the chief points of contrast between the Old and the New South? 11. What ideas have you about Clay's eloquence, from Lincoln's paragraph? 12. In a conversation about "The kinds of men I work with," what would be the main lines of your talk? 13. If you desire more practice, outline for a short talk one of the following topics: Workmanship, Reliability, Woman's Suffrage, High License, Books I Like to Read, My Job, My Employer, My Ambition. LESSON 2 THE GENERAL PLAN OF A SPEECH. THE DETAILED OF A NOMINATING SPEECH All but the very simplest messages which we can deliver in a speech are made up of several parts. This was insisted upon in the first lesson when we discussed the proper organization of those parts. A message was considered well organized if the nature of each part was clearly and forcefully presented and the relation of each part to the whole was made evident. Consequently we concluded that it is most necessary that we make a careful analysis to determine just how our thoughts hang together before we try to impress them upon other people. THE BODY OF A SPEECH Now let us suppose that you have a message to deliver which summed up is simply this: The Democratic Party ought to nominate Woodrow Wilson for president once more. Upon analysis you discover ten good reasons for this belief. You pass all these reasons in review before you and find that they are well founded. Then you organize them so that they will form a well-arranged group, easy of comprehension and forceful in its combined strength. An amplification of this will constitute the body of a speech nominating your candidate for the office of president. THE INTRODUCTION Yet that does not exhaust all the planning for such a speech, for you do not always wish to plunge immediately into the body of an address. The audience may not be ready to receive it. They may be so unfavorably prejudiced against you that they will not listen to your message till you woo them and win their favor. They may have some preconceived notions against your candidate or the platform upon which he expects to stand. In fact, a thousand and one untoward circumstances may exist which will make necessary some preliminary efforts to incline them to an impartial hearing of what may be said. This portion of the general speech is called the introduction. Its function is to prepare the way for the most favorable reception of the message proper. There are other things besides prejudice and unfriendly feeling which stand in the way of a good reception of the message, but we shall not enumerate them in this lesson. Whatever they are, the introduction is used to clear them away. THE CONCLUSION Besides the introduction and body, a speech may have a third part, the conclusion. The purpose of the conclu sion is to gather together the combined force of all the parts of the body of the speech and to drive home or apply them. It has been said that every speech-no matter how long or how short, no matter what the subject or the purpose must have three parts: an opening or introduction, a body or argument, and a conclusion. This is not true, for sometimes the situation is favorable to an immediate presentation of the message without preliminary words and sometimes the speaker prefers the audience to draw its own conclusions and to make its own applications. Yet it is well for the student to know the nature and use of all these parts so that he can employ them when desirable. We shall later make a detailed study of the introduction and conclusion and discuss when they may be omitted. Just now we shall assume that a nominating speech has these initial and terminal parts while we attend primarily to the nature of the material used in the body of the speech. Our study in this lesson will be the organization of the body of a nominating speech. CONKLING'S SPEECH NOMINATING GRANT FOR PRESIDENT, 1880 We take as our model Roscoe Conkling's nomination of General Grant for president, in the Chicago Convention of the Republican Party, 1880. It will be remembered that Grant served as president for two terms (18681876). He then traveled around the world, visiting all the civilized nations and receiving the homage of the greatest men and rulers of the earth. Mr. Conkling nominated him to run for a third time in the following |