A Treatise on Delivery WITH SELECTIONS FOR DECLAIMING BY EDWIN DUBOIS SHURTER ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ORATORY IN THE ALLYN AND BACON Boston and Ghicago PREFACE. THIS book is intended to help those who would speak well in public. It deals not so much with What to Say as How To Say It; and is designed to prepare students for subsequent training in formal oratory, debate, and extempore speaking. Most of the books that deal with the art of delivery belong to one of two general classes: (1) those containing generalizations that are all very good, but of no practical utility to the student of speaking; (2) those that are full of elocutionary directions and rules, that lean toward dramatic reading rather than public speaking, and stress mechanics rather than mentality. The treatment in this volume aims to be more specific than the one and less technical than the other. The mental requirements for speaking are emphasized throughout. Experience has shown that students should, at the outset, be put on thought-analysis, as is outlined in Chapter I; that the idea of thought-expression should be firmly fixed before the consideration of technique. Since public speaking is largely an art, no book of this nature can wholly supply a method or supplant a teacher. A few rules are given in the text, but these are rather principles to be grasped than rules to be memorized; and even then, perhaps, the able teacher can often make an example more effective without any rule. The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Professor Brainard G. Smith, for the use made of his 265830 |