Principles of Elocution: With Exercises and Notations for Pronunciation, Intonation, Emphasis, Gesture and Emotional Expression

From the INTRODUCTION.

ELOCUTION does not occupy the place it reasonably ought to fill in the curriculum of education. The causes of this neglect will be found to consist mainly of these two: the subject is undervalued, because it is misunderstood; and it is misunderstood because it is is unworthily represented in the great majority of books which take its name on their title page; and, also by the practice of too many of its teachers, who make an idle display in Recitation the chief, if not the only end, of their instruction. When we point to the fact, that public speaking is a part of the professional duty of every Clergyman and Advocate, and no unusual part of the social duty of a private citizen; and that Public Speaking involves two distinct requirements.-a knowledge of what to say, and how to say it; and when we farther advert to the fact, that in the whole course of school and college education, either for private citizens or public speakers, only one of these requirements is systematically provided for, the inadequacy of the provision to the requirements cannot but be manifest. We naturally ask "why is this?" The reason, perhaps, may simply be, that so it is! We are all slaves of custom, and cannot, without much difficulty be brought to alter existing arrangements, however unreasonable. We are too apt to lazily acquiesce in things as they are, however wrong, and passively accept the doctrine that "whatever is, is right."

But, besides this natural conservatism, this unreason, which is the principal cause of the maintenance of all error, there is another cause which is indeed a reason for the anomaly referred to, although the reason itself will be admitted to be unreasonable: a prejudice exists against the cultivation of manner in Delivery. Prejudice,-that Reason's very opposite,-denounces manner as if it was a thing of no matter. "Manner" and "Matter" are spoken of as antagonists in Oratory. But what is matter without manner? Matter is the native unquarried rock; Manner is the chiseled statue, or the sculptured palace. Matter is the chaos "without form and void" when darkness brooded over the face of the earth;" Manner is the rolling globe launched in the flood of light, and beautified with hill and dale, ocean and streamlet, herb, and tree, and flower. Manner is the manifestation of all matter; and no matter can be known but by the manner of its presentment.

This is equally true of intellectual as of physical material. The matter of the finest oratory may lie hidden within the brain, worthless and unappreciated; as the marble of that sweetest creation of the sculptor-the "Greek Slave"-lay buried in its native hill, till a Power arose that could unveil its symmetry and grace. And it depends entirely on the speaker's skill.-his power over manner-whether he fashion his matter into a paving stone or a Medicean Venus.

But this prejudice has a moral root from which it derives all its vitality:-"The eloquence that fascinates may be employed to dazzle and seduce. It may be used to make the worse appear the better reason." True, but the greater the attractiveness of Eloquence for purposes of mere amusement or for more unholy ends, the stronger is the reason and the more imperative the duty to master its refinements, and utilize its influence in all good and sacred causes....