The great public speakers in all times have been earnest and diligent students. We are familiar with the indefatigable efforts of Demosthenes, who rose from very ordinary circumstances, and goaded by the realization of great natural defects, through assiduous self-training eventually made the greatest of the world's orations, "The Speech on the Crown."
Cicero was a painstaking disciple of the speaker's art and gave himself much to the discipline of the pen. His masterly work on oratory in which he commends others to write much, remains unsurpassed to this day.
John Bright, the eminent British orator, always required time for preparation. He read every morning from the Bible, from which he drew rich material for argument and illustration. A remarkable thing about him was that he spoke seldom.
Phillips Brooks was an ideal speaker, combining simplicity and sympathy in large degree. He was a splendid type of pulpit orator produced by broad spiritual culture.
Henry Ward Beecher had unique powers as a dramatic and eloquent speaker. In his youth he hesitated in his speech, which led him to study elocution. He himself tells of how he went to the woods daily to practise vocal exercises.
He was an exponent of thorough preparation, never speaking upon a subject until he had made it his own by diligent study. Like Phillips Brooks, he was a man of large sympathy and imagination—two faculties indispensable to persuasive eloquence.
It was his oratory that first brought fame to Gladstone. He had a superb voice, and he possest that fighting force essential to a great public debater. When he quitted the House of Commons in his eighty-fifth year his powers of eloquence were practically unimpaired.
Wendell Phillips was distinguished for his personality, conversational style, and thrilling voice. He had a wonderful vocabulary, and a personal magnetism which won men instantly to him. It is said that he relied principally upon the power of truth to make his speaking eloquent. He, too, was an untiring student of the speaker's art.
As we examine the lives and records of eminent speakers of other days, we are imprest with the fact that they were sincere and earnest students of the art in which they ultimately excelled.