LECTURES
Lectures are but extended Explanations. Officers are more and more being called upon to appear before large audiences of educated people in order to give to the country military knowledge. Training Camps and war are increasing the necessity for the delivery of lectures.
Because the Lecture takes more time, it should be more carefully developed than the Explanation. The subject should be divided into its various parts in a logical way. It should be bound together coherently. And each part should have in it only what belongs there. This process is simply that of following the rules of English with which we are already acquainted. The purpose is speed and clearness.
There are other elements which enter into the betterment of a long talk. Since an audience is human, there is reason in helping it through a dry subject. The treatment of the Lecture may in this way, besides aiding the interest, make the points stick longer. Two qualities which help to attain this treatment are Humor and Presence.
Ordinarily the American does not need to be told to cultivate humor. He reeks with it. But there are some instructors whose minds work along so impassively that it is difficult for them to be wakened from their gravity. To them the conscious development of the short anecdote, homely illustration, and incongruous phrase is a splendid aid. The great majority, however, must be guarded in the use of humor. The quality itself may be overworked so that the proportion of matter in the Lecture is small in comparison to the witticisms. Humor is but a means to an end. Its sole object should be to lighten the talk in order to help the subject into the auditor’s mind more easily. Fun should be incidental and made without effort.
As to Presence more can be said in its favor. It is an indispensable quality in a speaker. If his diaphragm is in his mouth during his delivery, or if his heart action is violent, the audience cannot be fooled. It will be made uncomfortable. A speaker should have such ordinary fluency of accurate expression through practice that he entertains no fears of obscure or halting language. He should be so familiar with the sensations of looking into a number of faces that he will feel at ease. He should impress his audience that he enjoys standing before them for the purpose of imparting interesting knowledge. Such Presence can be attained only by taking advantage of every opportunity for correct public and private speech. The military novice should enter every impersonal discussion he can find, and should urge himself to speak whenever possible to more than a dozen people at a time.
He must be more than an ordinary talker, for he must have speed and interest as ready agents of his ideas. To gain those qualities is a matter of constant attention to speaking and to writing exactly what he wishes to say.
We have now covered the territory of military communications. We have seen the necessity for correct expression, and the difficulty of its attainment. What we have done should be but a beginning. It may be a long struggle to gain brevity and clarity—the terse and the unmistakable. But achievement will come with practice and will repay us fully in future satisfaction, and increased worth in our profession.