Speech delivery

“ THE MAKING OF THE SPEECH Although the use of selected speeches is best for effective drill in delivery, yet a student's training for public speaking is of course not complete until he has had experience in applying his acquired skill to the presenting of his own thought. Thinking and speaking should be made one operation. The principles of composition for the public speech belong to a separate work. ”

“ The matter is the product, the delivery is the mode of conveyance; and each is necessary to the other if either is to be of value to the speaker.
The only really effective form of delivery is the extempore; and, after once it has been acquired, it is the easiest of the many forms. In the opinion of the author, matter that is written out and then read, or matter that is written out, memorized, and then spoken, is in neither case a speech. Speaking is conveying thought by word of mouth, and not by word of pen. ”

“ If you can induce some friend whose opinion is worth receiving either to listen to your delivery or to talk the whole thing over with you, you will gain much. In conference with the teacher before your delivery of the speech such help will be given. As you work over your brief in this manner you will be delighted to discover suddenly that you need refer to it less and less frequently. Finally, the outline will be in your mind, and when you speak you can give your entire attention to the delivery and the audience. ”

“ The inexperienced speaker must be warned before attempting this method of delivery that it is difficult and trying. It requires much skill to make it efficient. The memorized lines of the young speaker will usually sound like memorized words, and repel.
If you want to hear an example, listen to a department store demonstrator repeat her memorized lingo about the newest furniture polish or breakfast food. It requires training to make a memorized speech sound fresh and spontaneous, and, unless you have a fine native memory, in each instance the finished product necessitates much labor. ”

“ This implies a thorough training in the technique of speech. [Pg 75] There should be a well-cultivated voice, of adequate volume, brilliancy, and carrying quality. There should be ample training in articulation, pronunciation, expression, and gesture. These so-called mechanics should be developed until they become an unconscious part of the speaker's style.
Your best opportunity for practice is in your everyday conversation. There you are constantly making speeches on a small scale. Public speaking of the best modern type is simply elevated conversation. ”

“ We call attention to only a few of the simpler and more common vocal manifestations of feeling, counselling the student who is to deliver a selected speech, to adapt his speaking to the style of that speech. In so doing he will get a varied training, and at length will find his own most effective style.
The speech which is matter-of-fact and commonplace only, has characteristically much short, sharp inflection of voice, with the rapidly varying intervals of pitch that we notice in one's everyday talking. ”

“ First a movement responds to the sensation; then a gesture, which depicts the emotion, responds to the imagination which colors the sensation. Then comes the judgment which approves. Finally, we consider the audience, and this view of the audience suggests the appropriate expression for that which has already been expressed by gesture.
The basis of this art is to make the auditors divine what we would have them feel.
Every speaker may choose his own stand-point, but the essential law is to anticipate, to justify speech by gesture. Speech is the verifier of the fact expressed. ”

“ A good speaking voice should possess the qualities of purity, resonance, flexibility, roundness, brilliancy, and adequate power. These qualities can be rapidly developed by daily reading aloud for ten minutes, giving special attention to one quality at a time. A few weeks, assiduous practice will produce most gratifying results. The voice grows through use, and it grows precisely in the way it is habitually used.
Distinct articulation and correct pronunciation are indications of cultivated speech. ”

“ The calm, quiet, soft and low-pitched, though firm, voice of the teacher, the parent, the employer, the salesman, the speaker, the statesman, is far more effective, far more likely to attain its end than the harsh, raucous, loud, too emphatic and high-pitched voice of the uncontrolled, untaught, or careless speaker. ”

“ The constant and insistent fact in all this period of experience has been that skillful, technical instruction, as such, is the one kind of instruction that should always be provided where public speaking is taught, and the one that the student should not fail to secure when it is at hand. Other elements in good speech-making may, if necessary, be obtained from other sources. The teacher of speaking should teach speech. He should teach something else also, but he should, as a technician, teach that. ”

“ Formed for society, the necessity of communication with his fellows developed the power of speech. Speech developed written characters and alphabets. Common communication developed concert of action, and from concert of action sprung the arts of society. ”

“ The speaker, knowing what his object is, should so dispose his forces as to drive steadily toward it, and when within reach, put forth all his power in one mighty effort, achieving the result for which the whole speech was intended. If neglected, such chances seldom return, and an hour’s talk may fail to accomplish as much as one good burning sentence thrown in at the right time. This should be foreseen, and the idea, which we know to be the key of our discourse, carefully prepared—in thought, not word. ”

“ Good conversation requires, among other things, mental alertness, accuracy of statement, adequate vocabulary, facility of expression, and an agreeable voice, and these qualities are most essential for effective public speaking. Everyone, therefore, who aspires to speaking before an audience of hundreds or thousands, will find his best opportunity for preliminary training in everyday speech. ”

“ It is easy for a speaker to pass from such prolonged tones to the shorter ones required in speaking, but after such exercises he can do so with a feeling of ease, mastery of himself, improved ear, and purity of speech not otherwise attainable. ”

“ We will pass by a paralysis of the muscles of the throat or tongue, which would, of course, prevent your speaking, and consider the process of setting in action the voluntary centers which govern speech. You have learned to speak by repeated efforts, at first with imperfect success, later witb proper regulation of the tone and effort necessary ”

“ No vague instructions such as, “speak in a clear ringing voice,” “use expressive language,” “mean what you say,” etc., will be given; but in their place will be found directions as to how to gain a good voice, how to acquire the power of explaining by the tones of the voice the meaning of the spoken words, how to secure a delivery that will carry conviction to the listener, and how to construct speeches. In short, this book aims not only to tell the essentials of oratory but also to show the way in which they may be acquired. ”

“ This method, followed for a few months, will develop speaking ability. It produces results suited to modern conditions of all kinds of life. It develops practically all the mental faculties and personal attributes. It puts the speaker directly in touch with his audience. It permits him to adapt his material to an occasion and audience. It gives him the opportunity to sway his hearers and used legitimately for worthy ends, this is the most worthy purpose of any speech. ”

“ The countenance is again directed forward toward a horizon, or even lifted toward a quarter of the sky above the horizon, and the but momentarily interrupted rapt soliloquy proceeds.
Such I understand to have been the style of Robert Hall's pulpit speech. It is a rare gift to be a speaker of this sort. The speaker must be a thinker as well as a speaker. The speech is, in truth, a process of thinking aloud--thinking accelerated, exhilarated, by the vocal exercise accompanying, and then, too, by the blindfold sense of a listening audience near. ”

“ Since speech is to express a speaker's thought, training in speech should not be altogether dissociated from training in thinking. It ought to go hand in hand, indeed, with the study of English, from first to last. But training in voice and in the method of speech is a technical matter. It ought not to be left to the haphazard treatment, the intense spurring on, of vocally unskilled coaches for speaking contests. Discussions about the teaching of speaking are often very curious. ”

“ Training in the spoken word is to-day, as never before, looked upon as a prerequisite to professional and business success. Henry Ward Beecher, speaking of the rightful place of speech culture, says:
A living force that brings to itself all the resources of the imagination, all the inspirations of feeling, all that is influential in body, in voice, in eye, in gesture, in posture, in the whole animated man, is in strict analogy with the divine thought and the divine arrangement ... ”

“ The speaker should keep to his one central idea, and keep with his audience. Otherwise the speech will be insincere and purposeless, perhaps absurd. The fundamental, not the superficial, should determine the action. Young speakers almost invariably pick out words or phrases, suggesting the possibility of a gesture, and give exact illustration to them, as if the excellence of gesture were in itself an object, when really the thing primarily to be enforced is not these incidental features in the form of expression, but the underlying idea of the whole passage. ”

“ Then, when we go a little farther and consider the act of speech itself, and its relation to the word, we sometimes meet with a doubt that we see expressed occasionally in the daily papers provided for us with twenty pages per diem and thirty-two on Sunday, whether we will need much longer anything but what is called sometimes by clergymen "the printed word"—whether the whole form of communication through oral speech will not diminish or fade away. ”

“ Great speeches, like great pictures, are inspired by great subjects and great occasions. When a speaker is moved to vindicate the national honor, to speak in defense of human rights, or in some other great cause, his thought and expression assume new and wonderful power. All the resources of his mind—will, imagination, memory, and emotion,—are stimulated into unusual activity. His theme takes complete possession of him and he carries conviction to his hearers by the force, sincerity, and earnestness of his delivery. ”

“ The static treats of the laws of gesture which are six in number, viz.: Priority, retroaction, the opposition of agents, unity, stability and rhythm.
The Priority of Gesture to Speech.
Gesture must always precede speech. In fact, speech is reflected expression. It must come after gesture, which is parallel with the impression received. Nature incites a movement, speech names this movement. Speech is only the title, the label of what gesture has anticipated. Speech comes only to confirm what the audience already comprehend. Speech is given for naming things. ”

“ The psalmists and prophets are but types of the orator, and the actor of today is the outcome of the player of old who was more a speaker than he was an actor.
Every citizen, at one time, was his own lawyer, spoke in his own defense, and advocated his own cause. Then came the era of the speech writers, who prepared the matter for the citizen to deliver; and finally, the professional advocate of today who appears in behalf of his client and acts and speaks for him. ”

“ Those who speak seem to deliver themselves with but little, perhaps not always with even a decorous, gravity. All that is necessary is to stand up in your place, take off your hat, turn to the Speaker (to whom all the speeches are addressed) , to hold your hat and stick in one hand, and with the other to make any such motions as you fancy necessary to accompany your speech. ”

“ If carefully guarded, the faculty of imitation may be of great service in the management of the voice. The sounds that express sympathy and passion are heard everywhere, forming a medium of communication more subtle and widespread than any language of earth. From the example of great orators we may learn what true excellence is, and become able to reproduce some, at least, of their effects. ”

“ The proverb is: 'From the mouths of scholars, but not from the mouth of books.' Verbal communication finds various aids either in pausing or continuing to speak, according to the requirements of the sentence, by raising or lowering the voice, in expressing astonishment, question, narrative, desire, fear or submission by means of gestures, without which speech by itself would remain inadequate. Occasionally the speaker even has recourse to movements of eyes, eyebrows, or the whole head and hands, in order to express anger, pleasure, humility or haughtiness to the degree desired. ”

“ Spirited oratory, with the commanding presence, the sweeping action, and an overmastering force of utterance, may at times be called forth, but these are given to a man out of his subject and by the occasion; they are not to be assumed by him merely because he is before an audience, or as necessary features of speech-making. Let the student speak, first and always, as a self-respecting, thinking man, earnest and strong, but self-controlled and sensible. ”