II. Legal Oratory.
III. Deliberative Oratory.
IV. Popular Oratory.
V. Controversial Oratory.
We apply the first term to all oral teaching, more connected than question and answer, and to all lectures that have instruction for their primary object. This species of discourse differs from the sermon in the absence of persuasion, rather than in its positive character. The lecturer should thoroughly understand the topic he attempts to unfold, and place it in the clearest possible light. Much illustration is needed, for the subject is usually a novel one to the greater portion of the audience, and can be best explained by comparison with familiar objects. It should have its strong central points, which can be easily remembered, and around which the minor parts of the discourse may be grouped, for if the whole consist of isolated facts poured forth without generalization or arrangement, no distinct impression will be left.
Appeals to passion and emotion are less necessary in lectures than in most other kinds of speech. Yet so closely are heart and intellect connected, that we can arouse attention, and secure a more durable result, if the facts we narrate are linked with the experiences and emotions of life.
The practice of writing is even more prevalent when applied to lectures than to sermons, and the reasons urged in its favor have more plausibility. As the lecturer does not aim to move his hearers to immediate action, the advantages of direct address are less required. Still he wishes to interest them, and it may be questioned whether this can, in any case, be so well accomplished from manuscript. But it is urged that in a scientific lecture there is often too great a number of detached facts to be easily remembered. This may be true, but it suggests another important question: if they cannot be recalled by the speaker who has reviewed them again and again for days together, how can it be expected that those who only hear them read over once, will retain any distinct impression? A clearer generalization of the whole discourse, and a proper arrangement of each fact under the principle which it illustrates, would go far to obviate both difficulties. Yet, in the use of statistics or other items, about which the speaker wishes to be precise, though he may only care to give the audience a general conception of them, notes will be a great relief to the memory, and the statement of principles deduced can be still made in direct address.
After a man has become so famous that each word he utters will be listened to with profound attention, because it comes from him, he may write safely. This is especially the case with those who have become authorities in their own departments of knowledge. What they say is received rather as a conclusion to argument, than as an assertion to be weighed, and the calm, deliberate reading of such final statements has all needed impressiveness. But if we have not attained this position, we had better employ every legitimate means to interest our audiences.
It is often claimed by the advocates of reading, that a literary lecture must be written to secure the polish and smoothness needful in the treatment of such themes. It will not do, say they, to give, in our words and manner, an illustration of the absence of the very qualities we praise. But surely men can speak on a subject they understand in good grammar and fitting language, without having first placed each word on paper! And if they attempt much beyond this they lead the mind of the hearer from the subject to a consideration of the skill of the lecturer. We are ready to grant that compositions should be read, not spoken, when ever they cease to instruct about something else, and become an exhibition in themselves. A poet is right in reading his poem; and even in prose, if we wish to call attention to our melodious words, and our skill in literary composition, instead of the subject we have nominally taken, it will be well to write. But the resulting composition will not be a lecture.
The field for instructive lectures is constantly enlarging. In former times they were monopolized by university professors, and very few persons sought to teach the people. But this has changed. There are now many more schools where courses of lectures are given on various topics, and every town of any pretension has its annual lecture course. Even these are not sufficient to meet the increasing demand, and, as every community cannot pay Beecher or Gough from one to five hundred dollars for an evening’s entertainment, there is abundant scope for humbler talent. Strolling lecturers, without character or knowledge, reap a rich harvest from the credulity of the people. Even the noble science of phrenology is often disgraced by quacks, who perambulate the country and pretend to explain its mysteries—sometimes telling character and fortunes at the same time. So far has this prostitution of talent and opportunity gone, that the village lecturer is often placed in a category with circus clowns and negro minstrels. But this should not be, and no class could do more to prevent it than the clergy. If they would each prepare a lecture or two upon some important subject they have mastered, they could extend their usefulness, and teach others besides their own flocks.