I never look upon the panorama of the past where vivid life forms have lost little of their original distinctness without thinking of the village oracles who exercised their eloquence in these local, free schools of debate. They gave a permanent bias and coloring to the genius and taste and style, in all their subsequent years, to men distinguished for their talents, whom the lyceums discovered and trained, who shone splendidly in after life. To find the place of the lyceum in the evolution of the debaters, we will eliminate genius. To draw a rude likeness was once genius. In mechanics genius ceased to be recognized as soon as labor could equal the result, once attributed to nature's gift, acting unaided. Whittier tells us that when he began life verse-making was a monopoly. Good citizenship is not a gift or an inheritance any more than is good soldiering. Courage alone does not make the soldier nor honesty alone the citizen. Training is essential to both. In the recent constitutional convention held in Massachusetts those who worked like Trojans, looked forward with apprehension, to the oratorical assaults, that would be made upon their results. They recognized the disproportionate advantage, but a real advantage never-the-less, of oratory, and this was not over-looked but acknowledged. For a fact, some excellent ideas went begging for the support of those who had talents and training for speaking exceptionally well. One who surpasses the ordinary standards, but a little, takes a position quite in advance of his fellows. Superiority on the race course is a matter of seconds and half-seconds. The honor bestowed by us on excellence in public address is greater than that attributed to men in literature or the professions, in business, or invention. The difference becomes so plain and is so conspicuous that it gains attention. The ablest speaker arouses the sympathies and gains the result. Where a cause is to be presented I have heard this formula. A poor cause, a good speaker. A good cause, any speaker. All of us have been present when a fine speaker having what may be called the wit of speech where a laugh was loaded with a principle where the address was clear, sparkling, above all things witty, wit being the rarest of qualities and surest of appreciation, the audience worked up by the rough and ready eloquence of a popular orator, reaching indeed an extraordinary pitch of excitement, has swept everything with the weaker side of the case. No accomplishment gains consideration for its possessor and his cause so speedily as public speaking. When billions were being raised in Liberty Loans, during the German war, the telling factor was the four-minute speakers that came out of the Phillips debating societies in the various communities, and these speakers having come to the front show some disposition to remain there.
A New Impetus
Here is brought to light the reason, that those northern states in which these elementary schools of patriotism and freedom have existed, cling so tenaciously, for local government, to the old town meeting. In this country where the motive power is public opinion, the ability to help in forming it is greatly to be coveted. The power of the lyceum would be instantly admitted, if we could use it for a moment as a negative quantity, and show how completely unfitted for public work many of our strongest factors would have been, had these little schools of oratory never opened their doors. I share in the well expressed opinion that there are four kinds of human activity for which a man must have a natural preparation, music, the sculptor's art, the painter's art, these three, and the highest forms of oratory. For these, most successful men must have aptitude. But to a person with the gift of utterance, occasion must say, Oratory, come forth! Money does not talk. Culture not wealth is the mark of distinction. Take a man whose father was poor and also the descendant of poor men with all their ideas of life associated with conditions of extreme poverty. The atmosphere and practices were such that Henry Wilson besought the legislature to change his name from Jeremiah Jones Colbaith to that one that he made famous as United States senator and as vice-president being elected on the ticket with Grant. He had known what it was to ask his mother for bread when she had none to give. Before he was twenty-one he had never had but two dollars and had never spent more than one dollar. At the end of an eleven years' apprenticeship to a farmer, he received a yoke of oxen and six sheep which he sold for eighty-four dollars. During these eleven years he never had more than twelve months schooling. The turning point in his life was the lyceum which he attended, following the lines of argument, but lacking courage to share in the debate. But one evening when the discussion was thrown open to the audience he engaged in it to the delight of his friends. His pastor called upon him and expressed his gratification and the lyceum increased in popularity as a place to hear him. His pastor urged him to seek an education. The lyceum had awakened his dormant powers. His special forte, his biographer says, was extemporaneous speaking and debate. In meetings held once or twice a week he acquired the drill he needed for coming conflicts.
The Onward Upward Course
Henry Clay rose to fame, by a sudden impulse at the meeting of a lyceum in Lexington. He overcame timidity and embarrassment, that had oppressed him, and in this favorite forum for the display of youthful talent, first exhibited the evidence of his extraordinary powers of oratory. His hour had struck. In this school for the highest powers of debate he discovered himself. He used a very common expedient and made it great and was proud to descend from the summit of political preferment to honor that arena, such as any community can provide, in which any ambitious young man can educate himself. Both Mr. Beveridge's brilliant oratory and Dolliver's success, as the greatest campaigner America has produced, are proof, that a training field is an indispensable condition of getting results, in the study of eloquence and in the art of oratory.
CHAPTER V
SEEN THROUGH THE LONG VISTA OF DEPARTED YEARS
In Bates Hall in the old public library in Boston, lying open on one of the ledges to any visitor, was an Ignorance Book, in which any one could ask a question on which he desired information, and after an interval, return to find it was answered. The Redwood library at Newport, R. I., has had, upon a commodious desk, a book by means of which readers can take their intellectual needs to those who have the ability to meet them. The Lyceum was once a great solvent. Nothing has taken its place. It was an evil day when this profoundly useful educational institution closed its doors. People are sitting on its front steps awaiting a reopening. They have, before them, a new map, a new world, and a new set of questions.