CHAPTER XIV
PREPARATION
Said Francis Bacon, the author of “Novum Organum,” “Reading maketh a full man, writing an exact man, and conversation a ready man.”
The first in importance of these is to be “a full man.” The lecturer should not deliver himself on any subject unless he has read about all there is of value on that question.
If, when you read, the words all run together in the first few minutes, or, you invariably get a headache about the third page, let lecturing alone. Remember that there must be listeners as well as lecturers, and you may make a good listener, a quality none too common, but, as for lecturing, you have about as much chance of success as a man who could not climb ten rungs of a ladder without going dizzy, would have as a steeplejack.
The speaker who writes out his speech and commits it to memory and then recites it, has at least, this in his favor: his performance represents great labor. An audience usually is, and should be, very lenient with anyone who has obviously labored hard for its benefit.
Writing out a speech has many advantages, and beginners especially should practice it extensively. It gives one precision or, as Bacon puts it, makes an “exact” man. It gives one experience in finding the correct word.
If you have not learned to find the right word at your desk where you have time to reflect, how do you suppose you will find it on the platform where you must go on?
In trying a passage in your study it is well to stand about as you would on a platform. My friend Jack London assured me that when he took to the platform his chief difficulty arose from never having learned to think on his feet.
Writing is also a great test of the value of a point. Many a point that looks brilliant when you first conceive it turns out badly when you try to write it out. On the other hand, an unpromising idea may prove quite fertile when tried out with a pen. It is better to make these discoveries in your study than before your audience.