"Impromptu"; or, How to Think on Your Feet

by Grenville Kleiser

The question has been asked, "Of what practical value is the Public Speaking Club to the business man?" My answer is because it teaches him to think. There is no greater difficulty confronting the business man to-day than that of finding men to fill positions where initiative and original thought are necessary. The call comes from the business world everywhere, "Give us men of ideas—men of ability—men who have mastered the art of thinking for themselves." Our schools and colleges are engaged in the task of storing the mind with facts. This is a splendid work, but we need to go one step farther, we must teach men how to apply and develop and use this knowledge. It is not how much a man knows that makes him a successful business man; it is what he thinks and does. Success is not measured by the size of a man's hat. The educational problem of the hour is not one of better schools and larger public libraries; it is the practical development of the mind; it is the awakening of the creative powers of thought, the birth of new ideas; it is training men how to put these ideas into concrete form, how to present and express them in such words and with such power that they shall carry conviction to the hearts of their fellow men.

THE STUDY OF FORENSIC ELOQUENCE

THE STUDY OF FORENSIC ELOQUENCE

By ISAAC GRANT THOMPSON

There is another essential, aside from the knowledge of the law, for the successful court lawyer—that is eloquence; the sort of eloquence which Blair defines to be "the art of speaking in such a manner as to attain the end for which we speak." Most young men, who study with a view of coming to the bar, have an ambition, more or less strong, to become advocates—to be able to convince judges and persuade juries by the power of their logic and the graces of their style and utterance; but a visit to our courts is but too likely to show how lamentably the great majority of them fail of achieving their desire.

Lack of perseverance in performing the labor necessary to the student of elocution, or ignorance of the method to be pursued; or, in many cases, a notion that orators, like poets, "are born, not made," has served to make the number of eloquent advocates very small indeed.

The most universal idea seems to prevail, that industry can effect nothing; that every one must be content to remain just what he happens to be, and that eminence is the result of accident. For the acquirement of any other art, men expect to serve long apprenticeships; to study it carefully and laboriously; to master it thoroughly. If one would learn to sing, he attends a master and is drilled in the elementary principles; and it is only after the most careful discipline that he dares to exercise his voice in public. If he would learn to play a musical instrument, how patiently and persistently does he study and practise, that he may draw out, at will, all its various combinations of harmonious sounds, and its full richness and delicacy of expression. "And yet," adds a learned writer, "a man will fancy that the grandest, the most complex, the most expressive of all instruments, which is fashioned by the union of intellect with power of speech, may be played upon without study or practise. He comes to it a mere tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power; he finds himself a mere bungler in the attempt, wonders at his failure, and settles it in his mind forever that the attempt is vain"—that it can be done only by genius.

Nothing can be more mischievous and unfortunate to the student than for him to fall into such an error—to hold the opinion that excellence in speaking is a gift of nature and not the result of patient and persistent labor and study. If all men had entertained and acted upon such an opinion, those who have won fame and honor by their eloquence would have remained mute and inglorious. Never would Demosthenes have charmed an Athenian audience, nor Cicero have hurled his denunciations against Cataline. Lord Chatham would have remained simple William Pitt, and Erskine live an ordinary English barrister. Curran would have been "Orator Mum" to the end of his days, and Choate died "unwept, unhonored, and unsung."

Men who believe that eloquence is the result of genius, and not of labor, are like the dwellers in the East, as described by Sir Joshua Reynolds in his address to the pupils of the Royal Academy. He says: "The travelers into the East tell us that when the ignorant inhabitants of those countries are asked concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining among them, the melancholy monuments of their former grandeur and long-lost science, they always answer: 'They were built by magicians.' The untaught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers and those works of complicated art, which it is utterly unable to fathom; and it supposes that such a void can be passed only by supernatural powers." What Sir Joshua says of painting is true of oratory. Those who know not the cause of any thing extraordinary and beyond them may well be astonished at the effect; and what the uncivilized ascribe to magic others ascribe to genius—two mighty pretenders who, for the most part, are safe from rivalry only because by the terror of their names they discourage in their own peculiar sphere that resolute and sanguine spirit of enterprise which is essential to success. But as has been well said, "all magic is science in disguise," and it is our object to proceed to take off the mask—to show that the mightiest objects of our wonder, so far as eloquence is concerned, are mere men like ourselves, have attained their superiority by steps which we can follow, and that we can walk in the same path even tho there remain at last a broad space between us.