Extempore Speech: How to Acquire and Practice It

by William Pittenger

Each clause should express a distinct idea, and but one. This should be repeated in no other part of the discourse; otherwise, we fall into wearisome repetitions, the great vice, as it is often claimed, of extempore speakers.

A brief plan is better, other things being equal, than a long one. Often a single word will recall an idea as perfectly as many sentences, and it will burden the memory less. We do not expect the draft of a house to equal the house in size, but only to preserve a proportionate relation to it throughout. The plan cannot supply the thought, but, indicating what is in the mind, it shows how to bring it forth in regular succession. It is a pathway leading to a definite end, and, like all pathways, its crowning merits are directness and smoothness. Without these qualities it will perplex and hinder rather than aid. Each word in the plan should suggest an idea, and be so firmly bound to that idea that the two cannot become separated in any exigency of speech. You will find it sorely perplexing if, in the heat of discourse, some important note should lose the thought for which it previously stood and become an empty word. But with clear conceptions condensed into fitting words this cannot easily happen. A familiar idea can be expressed very briefly, while a strange or new conception may require more expansion. But all thoughts advanced by the speaker ought to be familiar to himself as the result of long meditation and thorough mastery, no matter how strange or startling they are to his hearers. Most skeletons may be brought within the compass of a hundred words, and every part be clearly indicated to the mind that conceived it, though perhaps not to any other.

There may be occasions when a speaker is justified in announcing his divisions and subdivisions, but such cases are exceptions. Hearers do not care how a discourse is constructed, so it comes to them warm and pulsating with life. To give the plan of a speech before the speech itself is contrary to the order of nature. We are not required first to look upon a grisly skeleton before we can see a graceful, living body. There is a skeleton inside each body, but during life it is well hidden, and there is no reason that the speaker should anticipate the work of the tomb. It is hardly less objectionable to name the parts of the discourse during the progress of the discussion, for—continuing the former illustration—bones that project through the skin are very unlovely. The only ease, I presume to think, where it is justifiable to name the parts of a discourse, either before or during its delivery, is where the separate parts have an importance of their own, in addition to their office of contributing to the general object. Much of the proverbial “dryness” of sermons arises from the preacher telling what he is about to remark, firstly, before he actually makes the remark thus numbered. Whenever we hear a minister read his text, announce his theme, state the parts into which he means to divide it, and then warn us that the first head will be subdivided into a certain number of parts, each of which is also specified in advance, we prepare our endurance for a severe test.

What great speeches require are deep, strong appeals to the hearts of the people, through which shines the radiance of great truths and the lightning of intense convictions. These can all find their place in the most logically constructed address if the logic be not brought out and paraded in its offensive nakedness. No matter if the orator’s mode of work is less understood. A tree is far more beautiful and impressive when covered with waving foliage, even if some of the branches are hidden. Let the tide of eloquence flow on in an unbroken stream, bearing with it all hearts, but giving no indication of the manner in which it is guided; or, better still, let it move with the impetus of the cannon-ball, but without proclaiming in advance the mark toward which it is flying.

The plan should go just as far as the intended speech, that we may know exactly where to stop. Then we can arise with confidence, for we are sure that we have something to say; we know what it is, and, most important of all, we will know when it is finished. Most of the objections urged against extempore speaking apply only to speeches that have no governing plan. But when a firm and clear plan is prearranged, there is no more danger of saying what we do not intend, or of running into endless digressions, than if every word was written. Indeed, there is no better way of guarding against undue discursiveness in a written speech than by arranging such a plan before beginning to write.

But it may be urged that this laborious preparation—this careful placing of every thought—will require as much time as to write in full. It may at first. The mind needs to be drilled into the work, and it will be of great value even as a mental discipline. No study of logic or of metaphysics will give such practical insight into the nature of the mind’s workings as this pre-arrangement of thoughts and words to frame a speech. But the work grows continually easier with practice, until the mature speaker will save three-fourths—or even more than that proportion—of the time consumed by the speech-writer.

The speech is now clearly indicated. A plan has been prepared that fixes each item in its proper place. There is no further danger of the looseness and desultoriness with which extempore speech has been reproached. Yet there is abundant room for the inspiration of the moment. It is possible, in all the fire of utterance, to leave the beaten track and give expression to any new ideas that may be called up by the ardor of speech. But a sure foundation is laid—a course is marked out which has been deeply premeditated, and which gives certainty to all we say.

CHAPTER V.
How Shall the Written Plan be Used?

Now that the plan is completed and fully written out, the next question arises as to what shall be done with it. It may either be used or abused. To read it to the audience or exhibit it to them would be an obvious abuse. Possibly if the speaker possessed a large blackboard, the latter course might, in special cases, have some advantages. But even then it is better that the students should, in most instances, exercise their own ingenuity in gathering out of the body of the speech the central thoughts which they wish to preserve in their notebooks, than that the work should be done for them in advance by having the whole plan of the lecture placed in their sight.

The writer has experimented on this subject by repeating the same lecture to different classes with the outline in some cases exposed to view, and in the others concealed: the interest has always seemed to be greater, and the understanding more complete in the latter case. If this is true where instruction is the only aim, it is still more necessary where persuasion is the object of the speaker. The exposing in advance of the means by which he intends to work, will put on their guard the very persons whose hearts he wishes to capture, and thus lose him all that advantage of surprise which is often as momentous in oratorical as in military affairs.