To express correctly and pleasantly your conception of the meaning of a passage, your voice should be full, flexible, and under good control. 15. No rules will aid you in your efforts to obtain a correct understanding of the sense of any passage, or of the spirit with which it should be given; neither can any rules concerning inflection, pitch, force or stress guide you to the correct use of any of these elements of expression. All good reading and good speaking come from clear understanding and right feeling. The first and most important thing, then, for the student to do, is to make sure of the sense. 16. Carefully avoid all theatrical, clerical or any other mannerisms, and all affected and artificial tones. Be natural; speak as if uttering your own thoughts in your own way. Don't try to express too much, nor manifest more feeling than the sentiment requires. Be truly and deeply in earnest when it is necessary, but never rant. 17. When character is to be impersonated, exercise your own invention and imagination in forming your own conception of the character, and present that conception in your own peculiar style of delivery. 18. Try to make yourself believe that the words you are about to utter, express your own thoughts and sentiments, and consider how you would speak them if they were your own thoughts and sentiments. 19. If you are addicted to a monotone or to an artificial manner of reading or declaiming, select a suitable passage for practice in the descriptive, narrative, or argumentative style, and give it, a sentence at a time, in a simple, conversational manner; do not commence the second passage until you succeed in giving the first to your own satisfaction. 20. To estimate the amount of voice necessary to fill a room, look at the most distant of the persons you intend to address, and your own voice will instinctively take the pitch. and the force necessary to make him hear. 21. Read over a piece very carefully and as often as may be necessary to enable you to understand it perfectly. First, the class to which it belongs; as, descriptive, didactic, argumentative, etc.; also, whether it is emotional or unemotional, or part emotional and part unemotional, whether it is sentimental, humorous, or impassioned. Second, What is the pervading spirit of the piece? Is it sarcastic, pathetic, mirthful, serious, denunciatory or courteous? Third, Does it require impersonation? if so, what is the character to be portrayed? Is it an old person or a young person ? a soldier or a saint? a vulgar person, or one of great dignity? What are the peculiarities-physical or moral-which distinguish the character according to your conception of it? 22. As applied to reading and speaking, appreciation means to understand and to enter into the spirit of a piece, to deliver it with the right kind and the right degree of feeling. We may understand without appreciating, but we can not appreciate without understanding. Give a 23. Practice on good original examples will benefit the student more than practice on selected passages. short time every day to the making of examples of your own in antithesis, amplification, climax, emphatic repetition, etc., etc. 24. Great labor is always followed by some fatigue, but there is no excellence without great labor. Practice, to be profitable, must be vigorous and frequent, and should be continued until more or less weariness is felt. Whatever exercise you engage in, continue it long enough and with sufficient spirit and energy to derive some benefit from it. SUGGESTIONS TO EXTEMPORANEOUS 1. "Be sure you understand your subject. No matter how pleasant the modulation, how distinct the utterance, or how graceful the action of a speaker may be, if he does not understand his subject he must of necessity be unintelligible to his hearers. Be in earnest. Unless a speaker appears by his look and action to be animated by the truths he is uttering, he will not animate his hearers. It is the live coal that kindles others, not the dead. The same principle applies to all speaking. The power of Demosthenes--the greatest of orators-consisted chiefly in his being under the influence of the feeling with which he wished to inspire others. That which is most necessary to successful extemporaneous public speaking is that the speaker discuss a subject in which he feels a deep interest, and one concerning which he feels anxious to impart to others, and that he shall be so intent on accomplishing some desirable practical result by his effort that he will forget himself, and have not a thought of what his audience may possibly think of his performance.”—Dr. Jewet. 2. Every man has a language and a style that is peculiar to himself alone. Be yourself, use your own thoughts, your own language, and your own style-then you will be original. 3. To acquire facility and elegance of expression, the thoughts must be rapidly suggested to the mind of the speaker, and the words must be prompted by the thought. 4. To acquire the power of speaking to a point at a moment's notice, in a fluent, forcible and logical manner, you must frequently engage in the exercise of thinking, talking, and acting at the same time. 5. Whenever a good thought is suggested to your mind, as soon as possible write it out with the utmost clearness, in the best language you can command. Afterwards recall the fact or the thought, and express it by such language as may be suggested at the moment. 6. Cultivate self-possession. The speaker who loses his self-possession will soon lose control of his voice and command of his audience. 7. Practice alone, affirming, denying, interrogating, explaining, reasoning, and expressing your thoughts, sentiments, views, and feelings with every degree of force, from the whisper to the boldest utterance. The memory must supply, on the instant needed, the thoughts, facts, or illustrations, and the proper words to express them. 8. Take some simple, practical subject, and, as far as possible, exclude all other subjects from your mind; continue to think upon it. When a good thought, an important fact, or a pertinent illustration is suggested, make a note of it. When you have obtained material to commence with, write out a plan or a skeleton; then think over the subject again, and note down new thoughts and facts that are suggested. While so engaged, re-arrange your plan, and make other divisions, if necessary. 9. To speak well you must think well; and to think well requires extensive knowledge and a well disciplined mind. 10. Some one has defined an extemporaneous speaker to be one who knows what he is going to say, without knowing how he is going to say it. 11. Have something to say that you believe worth saying, and that you desire to say, and that you know or strongly believe to be true. 12. Do not try to speak like any body else: if your delivery be natural to yourself, you will speak as yourself and differently from any one else. 13. There is no such thing as a born orator or a born poet: there are self-educated orators and self-educated poets, but none who are born such. 14. Never attempt extemporaneous speaking without knowing what you wish to say. The greatest and the worst defect of a speaker is that of having nothing to say. 15. Both the beginner and the experienced speaker should not only practice speaking a good deal, but should also write much and carefully. BODILY EXERCISE AND PURE AIR. There are no two things more necessary to physical health, energy, and endurance than bodily exercise and pure air. A strong, clear, resonant voice is never found associated with a weak or sickly body. It is impossible to strengthen, deepen, or to increase the compass of the voice, or the energy and impressiveness of delivery, except by strengthening the body. He, then, who would increase his vocal power and his effectiveness in declamation or in public discourse, must take much bodily exercise. Students of every class, and all persons engaged in sedentary pursuits, can keep the body strong by exercising in a pure atmosphere, ten minutes at a time, three times a day. To obtain the benefits resulting from athletic exercises, it is not necessary that you should have a well appointed gymnasium in which to practice. Free gymnastics, or gymnastic exercises without apparatus, will serve the needs of all but those who desire to acquire remarkable muscular power or great athletic skill. There are but few exercises with apparatus that may not be almost as profitably practiced without apparatus. By executing the movements of the woodman, when chopping, the same muscles are brought into action and in the same way as if chopping with an ax; you can tax your muscles almost as much by lifting at an imaginary weight as if practicing upon the health-lift, and can expend as much strength pulling at an imaginary rope as a real one. The best time to take exercise is when you are reminded by your feelings that you need it. The greater the number of muscles that are brought into play in any exercise, the greater will be the benefit derived from it if it be energetically practiced. Quick and vigorous exercises, such as unning, jumping, boxing, fencing, etc., increase the action of the lungs, and cause rapid breathing. They should be practiced with moderation at first, but the rapidity and |