THE ILLUSTRATED PUBLIC SCHOOL SPEAKER AND READER Based on Grammatical Analysis : comprising a Choice Selection of Pieces for Reading and Recitation, annotated for Expression, to which is added A Selection of Greek, Latin, French, and German Extracts suitable for BY A. K. ISBISTER, M.A., LL.B. LONDON: 1870. 260.g.72 'MANY persons speak well who read badly, and good reading is not necessarily allied with good speaking; but I confidently assert that the two arts are so nearly connected, that the easiest way to learn to speak, is to learn to read. But it is not alone as a pathway to speaking that I earnestly exhort you to the study of reading: it is an accomplishment to be sought for its own sake. It has incalculable uses and advantages apart from its introduction to oratory. Tolerable readers are few: good readers are extremely rare. Not one educated man in ten can read a paragraph in a newspaper with so much propriety, that to listen to him is a pleasure, and not a pain. Why should this be? Why should correct reading be rare, pleasant reading be rarer still, and good reading found only in one man in ten thousand?'-EDWARD W. Cox, Letters to a Law Student. 'ELOQUENCE, in this empire, is power. Give a man nerve, a presence, sway over language, and above all, enthusiasm; start him in the public arena with these requisites, and ere many years, perhaps many months, have passed, you will either see him in high station, or in a fair way of rising to it. Party politics, social grievances, and the like, are to him so many newly discovered worlds, wherein he may, with the orator's swordhis tongue-carve out his fortune and his fame.'-FRASER'S MAGAZINE. PREFACE. THE PRESENT COMPILATION differs from previous works on Elocution in so many respects that a few words seem called for in explanation of the objects for which it is designed and the principles on which it has been constructed. It aims primarily to teach the art of easy, correct and tasteful reading, as an accomplishment and a necessary part of a good education, and on this to build up the practice of public speaking through the ordinary process of recitation of favourite extracts from our best authors, leading up by a regular gradation to original debates. The power of speaking well in public is so valuable and important an acquisition, its influence is so great, and in our own time and country especially the demands for its exercise are so frequent and so various, that it becomes almost a necessity for everyone who aspires to take a part in the duties of life to prepare himself to meet them. With these general objects in view the present volume embraces whatever belongs to rhetorical delivery. As all that is required for a finished reader is but a necessary preliminary to that which distinguishes the finished speaker, it sets out with a full exhibition of the principles and requisites of good reading. In illustration of these principles numerous exercises are given, showing the powers of the letters, the effect of accent, emphasis, modulation, pauses, &c., which, while they afford ample practice in mastering the most difficult combinations, are well calculated to awaken the attention and excite the interest of even very young learners. To promote the habit of a close study of the meaning, on which all good reading necessarily depends, an analysis is given of an extract from the 'Deserted Village' of Goldsmith, setting out in detail the principal and subordinate sentences of which it consists, from which it will be seen how much all real grace and propriety of utterance depend on a perception of the logical relations of the successive sentences and their several parts. Extracts are also given, with marginal references and annotations intended to draw the attention of the pupil to the alternations of thought and feeling in the passages selected, so as to serve as a guide to their proper expression in reading and delivery. The habit of a critical analysis of what is read being once formed, such aids may as the pupil advances be dispensed with, and they are accordingly by degrees discontinued. A second division of the work is devoted to a brief but practical consideration of the subject of Gesture, followed by a large collection of exercises for practice in recitation, classified under heads, and exhibiting all varieties of composition suitable for declamation. The whole concludes with a debate fully written out for fifteen speakers, intended to introduce youths in the advanced classes in school, and others, to the valuable and interesting practice of original discussion. The debate is extracted, with the kind permission of the publishers, from Mr. Rowton's 'Debater,' where will be found, in addition to many other debates, an extensive collection of subjects suitable for class discussion. A few Greek, Latin, French and German extracts are appended suitable for recitation on 'speech-days' at public зchools, which it is hoped will add to the utility of the collection. The earlier extracts are illustrated by diagrams and figures, in the hope that they will prove useful in suggesting a general outline of appropriate action for imitation and practice by beginners, until the awkwardness and timidity which generally accompany the first efforts of the tyro in elocution are overcome. When this end has been attained nature and habit will suggest the proper delivery, and rules and directions for the purpose become unnecessary. In reference to the general practice of committing to memory passages from our best writers and its value as an educational discipline, special attention is requested to the following extract from an admirable lecture on this subject by Mr. Vernon Lushington. On Learning by Heart. Till he has fairly tried it, I suspect a reader does not know how much he would gain from committing to memory passages of real excellence; precisely because he does not know how much he overlooks in merely reading. Learn one true poem by heart, and see if you do not find it so. Beauty after beauty will reveal itself, in chosen phrase, or happy music, or noble suggestion, otherwise undreamed of. It is like looking at one of Nature's wonders through a microscope. Again: how much in such a poem that you really did feel admirable and lovely on a first reading, passes away, if you do not give it a further and much better reading!-passes away utterly, like a sweet sound, or an image on the lake, which the first breath of wind dispels. If you could only fix that image, as the photographers do theirs, so beautifully, so perfectly! And you can do so! Learn it by heart, and it is yours for ever! I have said, a true poem; for naturally men will choose to learn poetry-from the beginning of time they have done so. To immortal verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a lasting home. However, some prose is poetical, is poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart; and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us; and the labour, once given, is forgotten, while the result remains. Poems and noble extracts, whether of verse or prose, once so reduced into possession and rendered truly our own, may be to us a daily pleasure;-better far than a whole library unused. They may come to us in our dull moments, to refresh us as with spring flowers; in our selfish musings, to win us by pure delight from the tyranny of foolish castle-building, self-congratulations, and mean anxieties. They may be with us in the work-shop, in the crowded streets, by the fireside; sometimes, perhaps, on pleasant hill-sides, or by sounding shores;-noble friends and companions-our own! never intrusive, ever at hand, coming at our call! Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson,-the words of such men do not stale upon us, they do not grow old or cold. . . . Further: though you are young now, some day you will be old. Some day you may reach that time when a man lives in greater part for memory and by memory. I can imagine a chance renewal, chance visitation of the words long remembered, long garnered in the heart, and I think I see a gleam of rare joy in the eyes of the old man. For those, in particular, whose leisure time is short, and precious as scant rations to beleaguered men, I believe there could not be a better expenditure of time than deliberately giving an occasional hour-it requires no more-to committing to memory chosen passages from great authors. If the mind were thus daily nourished with a few choice words of the best English poets and writers; if the habit of learning by heart were to become so general, that, as a matter of course, any person presuming to be educated amongst us |