Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by the
National School of Elocution and Oratory,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Franklin Printing House,
321 Chestnut Street,
Phil’a.
PREFACE.
The following pages are the result of considerable observation and experience. Fifteen years ago the writer published a small volume entitled “Oratory; Sacred and Secular,” in which the same general views were set forth, though more slightly and crudely expressed. In this work the recognized defects of that earlier effort are supplied; and it is believed that all persons who have natural adaptation to public speech will here find all necessary directions to guide them by the shortest and surest road to success.
It is not necessary or even expedient that a book which teaches the mode of eloquence should itself be eloquent. We may watch, admire, and describe the flight of an eagle while standing on the firm ground quite as well as if flying in the air beside him. No effort, therefore, has been made to imitate those grand bursts of feeling or lofty flights of imagination in which the popular orator may indulge; but we have sought to give such directions about practical details as may be useful to the highest genius, while the broad path toward that kind of excellence most in harmony with the speaker’s own faculties is clearly marked out.