Extempore Speech: How to Acquire and Practice It

by William Pittenger

Extemporaneous speech furnishes much better opportunity than written for the acquirement of all these elements of power. When a speech is once written it is finished. But when merely planned and outlined, all stories, quotations, incidents, and happy turns of language discovered afterward, may be noted on the written plan, or slipped into an envelope with it, and afterward used at any time without the labor necessary to adjust them to a manuscript discourse.

CHAPTER XI.
The Orator’s Logic.

Logic is either one of the most useful or one of the most useless acquisitions of the orator. As taught in the middle ages, with its barbarous jargon of symbols and terms, it can add but little directly to the force or truth of any man’s speech, although even in that form it may, like most other studies, accomplish something in the way of sharpening the critical faculty and strengthening memory and attention. Its definitions, also, are not altogether valueless. But not one student in a thousand will apply its cumbrous rules in shaping his own reasoning, or in judging of the reasoning of others. If the reader has studied logic his own experience may be confidently appealed to. Do you ever, in reading an argument, notice to which figure and mood of the syllogism it conforms? If the argument seems false, do you ever seek to find whether the fault is in negative promises, want of distribution of the middle term, or in the violation of any other technical rule of logic? The mind has a much more direct and summary mode for disposing of unsatisfactory arguments.

But the principles of logic are few and simple, and when divested of all technicality, are of universal application. We will venture to point out some that may be of especial service to the speaker:

1st. Clear definition. The speaker should know the meaning of his subject and of all the important terms used in connection with it. This knowledge he should convey to his hearers in the most clear and striking manner that his own powers will permit. To have an audience misunderstand the speaker so far that while he was talking of one thing they are understanding something totally different (even if known by the same name) would be a grave logical fault. Exact and comprehensive definition, often enlivened and simplified by similes or anecdotes, will prevent such danger.

2d. Exact and comprehensive division of a subject is scarcely less important than clear definition. This is of equal value in studying a subject and in presenting it to an audience. If we wished to speak or learn about the ocean, one of the first facts to be dealt with would be its division into five parts—Atlantic, Pacific, etc. A good principle of division should always be selected and faithfully applied. Then as many subdivisions may be added as naturally follow from the application of another good principle of division. Thus, astronomy may be first defined as “the science of the stars.” Then it can be divided into planetary and stellar astronomy. The former may be subdivided into descriptions of the individual planets and other bodies in the solar system; the latter into the classes of objects found among the fixed stars. All of this is not a rhetorical or oratorical device, but has its foundation in mental laws; in other words, it is logical.

3d. Classification lies at the foundation of many of the sciences, and is a process of the highest importance in every domain of knowledge. In no other manner can the vast multitude of facts discovered by millions of observing eyes be preserved and made useful. The orator must also classify his general knowledge, and that special part of it which he intends to use for a speech. All his proofs, appeals, illustrative facts, and even his digressions should be arranged according to those natural bonds of congruity which constitute the basis of all classification.

But in what way can the person who is ignorant of technical logic make a harmonious classification? It will not add much to his ability to tell him that two processes—abstraction and generalization—are the basis of all true classification. It is simpler and means the same to say that things should be classed together which agree in some permanent and fundamental quality. Thus a vast number of animals of the most varied sizes, shapes, and powers, agree in having backbones and are therefore put into a class and called vertebrates. The study of agreements and similarities in things the most diverse is exceedingly profitable to the orator in many different ways. It affords inexhaustible material for illustrations—“those windows of speech.” The difference between the likeness upon which classification and illustrations are based is about as follows: The similarities which give rise to scientific classes are very important and essential; those from which illustrations spring may be slight and superficial.

These three processes are of more importance to the orator than any others embraced in logic. There is nothing “dry” or “repulsive” about them—terms quite frequently applied to discourses which turn aside from their own direct purpose to display the mere machinery of reasoning. By division a distinct impression is made of each part of a subject; by definition all misunderstandings are cleared away and attention fixed upon the very points at issue; by classification all thoughts find their proper places and are so gathered up into general ideas and joined with other familiar thoughts, by way of illustration, that they may easily be remembered and applied.

But how about the syllogism which logical treatises devote so much time to explaining? Its many varieties and endless transformations wrought out by acute minds from the time of Aristotle to the present, are curious and interesting, but they are not specially available for a speaker. Yet, since they rest upon a few easily understood principles, we will refer to the most obvious.