III. Make your plan carefully and as simply as possible. Then keep that plan in the center of attention.

IV. Also pay attention at a lower level (or zone out from the focus) to the audience and adapt the parts of your message to the audience as it changes from time to time in receptiveness.

A careful observation of these four things will go a great way toward insuring proper attention on your part and on the part of the audience.

ASSIGNMENT OF WORK

The written exercises in this entire lesson should be carefully worked out. Keep copies of the written exercises in your notebook.

First Day.-Read the lesson through twice. Then review in a thorough manner Lesson 4.

Second Day.-Observe whenever something you are doing grows wearisome. Make careful note of the number of times you, start to do something and stop before it is completed. Are you incapable of the hard concentration of the habit type? If you are tempted to turn aside from something as you grow weary of it, stick to it simply as a test of character. Remember that you must get the habit of concentration if you are ever to get at the bottom of anything and do it well.

Third Day. On this or some substituted day, attend a sermon, lecture or other extended address and note when the theme grows uninteresting or when your attention wanders. Can you put your finger on the reason for each lapse? Was the cause included in those enumerated in this lesson, or was there some other cause? (Of course this very task tends to divide your attention, but if you honestly attend to the speaker and do not reflect on the loss of attention until it actually takes place, the evil will be reduced.) Write out your observations.

Fourth Day.-At another speech, observe the audience and speaker. Do not attend primarily to his message, but rather make your own observation of the kind of attention he arouses and holds. See how he meets situations. Do you

think he attends to his audience? Did he make any mistakes? What were they? Do they suggest to you any additions to this lesson?

Fifth Day.-Plan and deliver orally a short speech. How do you find your attention to the main line of argument? Do you keep your outline clearly before you? Have you any distracting language disability, any faults of gesture? Have you a tendency to ramble, overamplify, or pursue suggested new ideas?

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. What two aspects of attention are treated in this lesson ? Why is the second important?

2. Can you give a definition of attention? definition is given in the lesson.

No formal

3. What is meant by subject and object when we discuss attention? Can the object be within a man's own mind, or must it be a real, external thing?

4. What is meant by zones of attention? What is the focus of attention? When we say that a thing is below the threshold of attention, what do we mean? Could we just as properly say, beyond the farthest zone?

5. What are the characteristics of voluntary attention? What are the characteristics of involuntary attention? What are the characteristics of habitual attention?

6. Which of these is most desirable during the preparation of speech material? Why?

7. Which is the most desirable during delivery? Why?

8. Does interest play any part in attention? What interests start the speaker on his task of research and renew his application whenever habitual attention breaks?

9. What operations should receive no conscious attention during delivery? How do they manage to go on satisfactorily without attention? Look at the lesson on action and see if certain actions become automatic.

10. What kind of attention should the audience receive? What particular things connected with the audience are especially worthy of this sort of attention? Do those things always stay at the same level of attention-or in the same zone of attention?

11. What is the life history of a distraction? Take first an important distraction and then an unimportant one.

12. How does the interest of the audience affect its attention? 13. What effect has monotony on the attention paid by the audience? What things in speech delivery are prone to monotony?

14. Why should a speaker avoid all peculiarities of manner, speech and dress? Do you remember any speaker who had a shortcoming of this sort which caused disaster?

15. How can a speaker prevent some of his own good ideas from starting the audience off on a little line of meditation, to the exclusion of the speaker's address?

LESSON 19

THE PURPOSE OF A SPEECH

The seed from which every speech springs, is the purpose to be accomplished by it. This seed, taking root in the heart of the speaker, germinates in his search for material, puts forth leaves in his planning, and bears fruit in the delivery. And each of these stages is determined in its character by the nature of the original seed. The purpose starts all the mechanism of speech-making and dominates at every step. The more clearly defined the purpose, the more directly the speaker sets about his several tasks. To change the figure, we may say that the purpose sets the mark and aims the gun. If the speaker follows the guidance of his purpose successfully, he hits the mark. Though we have left our discussion of the urpose of the speech and its ramifying influences until this late lesson, we have assumed from the very beginning that a purpose exists for every speech. Its existence was implied in our treatment of organization, planning, and dividing the speech, and in our exposition of the treatment of various details.

1. NATURE OF PURPOSE

Purposes are as many and various as the differing characters of men multiplied by the millions of situations which confront them in kaleidoscopic rotation, and multiplied again by the numberless combinations of minds and temperaments in the audiences. Assume that a man has for one of his purposes, the selling of lawn mowers;

that purpose and the carrying it to a successful issue will vary with each customer. Furthermore, the means which he will use in a certain case will not be the same as the means he will use to carry out another purpose, such as the winning of a bride to share with him the profits of his numerous sales. Each purpose is individual and each speech brings with it special problems connected with the accomplishment of the end in view.

The old rhetoricians endeavored to classify the ends or purposes of speeches. They tried to establish certain kinds of ends which would embrace all particular cases. Aristotle (B. C. 384-322) divided all speeches into (1) the demonstrative, which had for their end the simple presentation of things for the pleasure or displeasure naturally associated with them; (2) the judicial, which sought to establish justice through the proof of the truth about something which took place in the past; and (3) the deliberative, which undertook to move the hearers to a wise future action. This is a fair classification of the occasions or subjects of a Greek orator's speeches, but it offers little suggestion concerning differences in method in attaining the various ends.

Modern writers have turned to psychology for a basis of classifying the general purposes of a speaker. One of the early English arrangements of this sort is that of Campbell (1757) which has been widely copied and poorly imitated. He said, "All the ends of speaking are reducible to four; every speech being intended to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, or to influence the will."

But these classifications overlook the complex nature of a speech which would be of service to accomplish any purpose in practical life. For instance, it is difficult to move the will unless the imagination, feelings, and understanding have all been set into operation also, and it is hard to say when a simple appeal to the imagination may