THE FORMAL ADDRESS

The selections in the several sections for platform practice are to be used for applying, in appropriate combination, the principles heretofore worked out, one by one. The first group provides practice in the more formal style. The occasion of the formal address requires, in large degree, restraint and dignity. The thought is elevated; the mood serious, in some cases subdued, the form of expression exact and firm. The delivery should correspond. The tone should be, in some degree, ennobled; the movement deliberate, and comparatively even and measured; the modulation not marked by striking variations in pitch; the pauses rather regular, and the gesture always sparing, perhaps wholly omitted. The voice should be generally pure and fine; the enunciation should be finished and true. Whatever action there may be should be restrained, well poised, deliberate, with some degree of grace. In general it should be felt that carelessness or looseness or aggressiveness or undue demonstrativeness would be out of harmony with the spirit of the occasion. Good taste must be exercised at every step, and the audience should be addressed, from the outset, as in sympathy with the speaker and ready at once to approve. The spirit and manner of contention is out of place.

In this style of discourse the liability to failure lies in the direction of dullness, monotony, lack of vitality and warmth. This is because the feeling is deep and still; is an undercurrent, strong but unseen. This restrained, repressed feeling is the most difficult fittingly to express. In this kind of speech some marring of just the right effect is difficult to avoid. Simplicity, absolute genuineness, are the essential qualities. The ideas must be conveyed with power and significance, in due degree; but nothing too much is particularly the watchword regarding the outward features of the work.

THE PUBLIC LECTURE

In the public lecture the element of entertainment enters prominently. The audience, at first in a passive state, must be awakened, and taken on with the speaker. Probably it must be instructed, perhaps amused. The speaker must make his own occasion. He has no help from the circumstance of predisposition among his auditors. He must compel, or he must win; he must charm or thrill; or he must do each in turn. Animation, force, beauty, dramatic contrast, vividness, variety, are the qualities that will more or less serve, according to the style of the composition. Aptness in the story or anecdote, facility in graphic illustration, readiness in expressing emotion, happiness in the imitative faculty, for touching off the eccentric in character or incident, are talents that come into play, and in the exercise of these, gesture of course has an important place.

The lecture platform is perhaps the only field, with possibly the exception of what is properly the after-dinner speech, wherein public speaking may be viewed as strictly an art, something to be taken for its own sake, wherein excellence in the doing is principally the end in view. This means, generally, that individual talent, and training in all artistic requirements, count for more than the subject or any "accidents of office," in holding the auditor’s interest. An animated and versatile style can be cultivated by striving to make effective the public lecture.

THE INFORMAL DISCUSSION

Informal discussion is the name chosen for the lecture or talk in the club or the classroom. It implies a rather small audience and familiar relations between audience and speaker. While the subject may be weighty, and the language may be necessarily of the literary or scientific sort, the style of speaking should be colloquial. It ought to bring the hearer pretty near to the speaker. If the subject and language are light, the speaking will be sprightly and comparatively swift.

Since the occasion for this kind of speaking is frequent, and the opportunity for it is likely to fall to almost any educated man, proficiency in it might well be made an object in the course of one’s educational training. The end aimed at is the ability to talk well. This accomplishment is not so easy as it may seem. It marks, indeed, the stage of maturity in speech-making. Since authoritative opinion from the speaker and interest in the subject on the part of the audience are prime elements in this form of discussion, little cultivation of form is usually given to this kind of speaking. The result is much complaining from auditors about inaudibleness, dullness, monotony, annoying mannerisms, or a too formal, academic tone that keeps the audience remote, a lack of what is called the human quality. A good talker from the desk not only has the reward of appreciation and gratitude, but is able to accomplish results in full proportion to all that he puts into the improvement of his vocal work. An agreeable tone, easy formation of words, clear, well-balanced emphasis, good phrasing, or grouping of words in the sentence, some vigor without continual pounding, easy, unstudied bodily movement without manneristic repetition of certain motions, in short, good form without any obtrusive appearance of form,--these are the qualities desired.