With all its many advantages the field of observation is limited. Not every person can experience or see all he is interested in and wants to talk about. We must choose presidents but we cannot observe the candidates themselves and their careers. We must have opinions about the League of Nations, the Mexican situation, the radical labor movements, the changing taxes, but we cannot observe all phases of these absorbing topics. If we restrict speeches to only what we can observe we shall all be uttering merely trivial personalities based upon no general knowledge and related to none of the really important things in the universe.
Nor is it always true that the person who does a thing can report it clearly and accurately. Ask a woman or girl how she hemstitches a handkerchief, or a boy how he swims or throws a curve, and note the involved and inaccurate accounts. If you doubt this, explain one of these to the class. It is not easy to describe exactly what one has seen, mainly because people do not see accurately. People usually see what they want to see, what they are predisposed to see. Witnesses in court, testifying upon oath concerning an accident, usually produce as many different versions as there are pairs of eyes. Books upon psychology report many enlightening and amusing cases of this defect of accurate observation in people. [2]
[2] Good cases are related by Swift, E.J.: Psychology and the Day's Work.
The two negative aspects of material secured in this first manner—1, limited range of observation, 2, inaccuracy of observation—placed beside the advantages already listed will clearly indicate in what subjects and circumstances this method should be relied upon for securing material for speeches.
EXERCISES
1. Make a list of recent articles based upon observation which you have seen or read in newspapers and magazines.
2. With what kind of material does each deal?
3. Which article is best? Why?
4. List four topics upon which your observation has given you material which could be used in a speech.
5. What kind of speech? A speech for what purpose?