Vocal Expression: A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation

by Katherine Jewell Everts

The following selections are to be: first, read aloud (in class); second, examined as to their literary construction (in class); third, analyzed and reported upon as specimens of exposition and argumentation (in the study).

Exposition is an explanation, a setting forth, or an expounding. It is an attempt to render something plain, an effort to convey to the reader a train of thought which represents the conclusions of the writer upon a subject. The writer, it is at once evident, must be acquainted with the subject with which he deals. He is presuming to teach, and must be in a position which justifies him in so doing. He is prepared to write an exposition only when he is able, in regard to the topic in hand, to take frankly and unreservedly the attitude of a teacher.

A teacher must have many good gifts and graces; and whoever else may fail to be well acquainted with a given lesson, he must have mastered it thoroughly. To teach he must first know. Whoever has taught understands how completely different is the attitude of the teacher from that of the pupil. While the pupil is hardly expected to be able to do more than reasonably well to understand the subject in hand, the teacher must be able to explain, to justify, to make clear relations, and to impart the whole matter. The pupil is excused with a sort of hearsay knowledge, but the teacher must have a vital experience of what he teaches. Especially must he be able to comprehend and to represent a subject as a whole. He is responsible for the student's being able in turn to co-ordinate facts and theories so as to produce unity; and it is therefore essential that he himself have power to hold and to make clear a continuous train of thought.

The teacher, moreover, must have over his mind discipline so firm that he is not dependent upon moods. He must cover the wide difference between the train of thought which springs spontaneously in the mind and that which is laboriously worked out as a logical sequence of ideas relating to a subject forced upon the attention. The pupil may, to a certain extent, indulge the vagaries of his inclination, but the teacher must respond to the need of the moment. He must have trained his mind to give an intelligent judgment upon any matter presented to it. He is not equipped for instructing—nor is any individual ready for life—until he can command the resources of his inner self to the utmost. The trained person is one who can take a subject which may not at the outset especially appeal to him, which is full of complications, which is not in itself, perhaps, attractive, and can insist with himself that his mind shall master it thoroughly. He is able so to expend his whole mental strength, if need be, upon any necessary topic that the subject shall be examined, acquired, assimilated, and then shall be so organized, so illumined, and so presented that others shall be instructed. The mind of the teacher, in a word, is so disciplined that it will work when it is ordered.

The ideal state of mind for him who wishes to communicate knowledge is that of being absolute master of all its resources. Many who possess no inconsiderable powers of thought are practically unable to command the best powers of their intelligence. They depend upon the whim of the moment, upon some outward pressure or inward impulse, to arouse their intellect. They fail to reflect that while any ordinary intellect naturally forms some opinion upon any subject which interests it, only the trained mind is able to judge clearly and lucidly of an indifferent or uninteresting matter. In this mastery of thought lies the difference between the sterile and the productive mind. Only one brain in a thousand has not the disposition to shirk work if it is allowed, and every student has moments when his intelligence seems almost to act like a spoiled child that hates to get up when called on a cold morning. To establish the power of the will over the intellect is the object of education, and the ability to exercise this power is what is meant by the proper use of the word "cultivation."

The mental process of the cultivated thinker when considering any subject is likely to be: first, to become sure of his terms; then, clearly to set before his mind the facts and conditions; and, lastly, to make the possible and resulting deductions and conclusions. This gives a hint, and indeed practically affords a rule for the writer of exposition.

An exposition, broadly speaking, may be said to consist of three steps which nearly correspond to the three steps of mental activity just set down: the Definition, the Statement, and the Inference.

Definition is making clear to self or to the reader what is under discussion.

Statement is the setting forth of whatever is to be said of the facts, conditions, relations, and so on, which it is the object of the exposition to make clear.