II-War is Futile.

A-The French and Indian War failed.

B-The campaigns have failed.

I-Our Best army has failed.

C-Added expenditures for mercenaries will fail. I-Mercenaries fill the Americans with incurable resentment.

a-If I were an American I never would lay down my arms.

2-Mercenaries weaken the discipline of our

army.

a-By the spirit of plunder.

3-Mercenaries degrade the moral tone of the army.

a-By the spirit of savage warfare.

Both Henry's speech and Chatham's speech are comparatively short, and we find the number of main ideas that develop the thought small. But even in a longer speech the number of main ideas is small. In his Phi Beta Kappa speech, "The Scholar in a Republic," (see page 241). Wendell Phillips talked for about an hour and a half, and yet his thought concerning the scholar's duty can be developed under three heads: first, the scholar should educate the masses; second, he should trust the masses; and third, he should lead the masses in reform movements. It is plain that these three thoughts could be condensed into a short speech. The main difference between a short speech and a long one is not so much in the number of principal thoughts presented as in the extent to which these thoughts are developed. The discussion should

of course go beyond the bare statement of the principal ideas. It should go far enough to make these ideas clear and impressive. Each main idea should be developed by explanations and reasons, and these in turn should be made clear, vivid, and convincing by illustrations and facts. It is these details in a speech that make it effective.

While the main ideas in most speeches should be clear in the mind of the speaker, except in debates and other formal arguments, they need not be formally stated in the speech and developed in one, two, three order. In his Liverpool speech Beecher spent a large part of his time trying to show his audience that England would profit by a Northern victory in the Civil War. He did not state this general idea as a proposition and then procede to prove it, but he led his audience up to it, by reminding them of their commercial character, and by showing them that liberty and intelligence are essential to commerce.

A speech should have a logical structure—a perfect skeleton around which the flesh is formed, but the audience should see the flesh over the skeleton. The speaker should know the osteology of the speech, and the audience if asked to dissect it should be able to discover easily the main bones and joints, but unless the purpose of the speech is primarily a study in osteology rather than a work of art, neither speaker nor audience should lose the beauty of the speech by a consciousness of the bones. Speech-structure should not be evident to the audience while the speaker is before them, but after the speech is finished the audience should be able easily to remember and write down

in the form of a brief the main course of the thought. The speech structure should be the strong inner framework which serves its purpose unobstrusively and well.

Its Purpose

III. CONCLUSION

In all composition, spoken or written, there should come a time when all of the principal ideas with their developing reasons, facts, and illustrations have been presented. When this time is reached, the composition should close easily and quickly. This conclusion seldom requires more than a paragraph or two, and is sometimes condensed into a single sentence. Thus after describing the conduct of Voltaire in relation to a concrete case of injustice, Ingersoll closes with the words, "Such was the work of Voltaire." (See page 303. At the close of Enoch Arden, Tennyson finishes the story with this short and simple statement:

"So passed the strong heroic soul away. And when they buried him the little port Had seldom seen a costlier funeral."

Again, at the close of Dora, he says,

"So those four abode within one house together; and

as years

Went forward Mary took another mate;

But Dora lived unmarried till her death."

In Guinevere he uses this conclusion:

“*** there an Abbess, lived

For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, passed To where beyond these voices there is peace."

Each of these conclusions is short. In each we feel that the story is finished. Most speeches require longer conclusions than those of simple narratives, but in every case the first function of the conclusion is to finish and round out the thought.

To round out. Just as a speaker should not begin in the middle of a speech, so he should not stop in the middle of it. The ending should not be abrupt and ragged, leaving the audience with the impression that the speaker has "stopped talking" before the speech is finished. A speech without a conclusion is like an unfinished sentence, fragmentary and imperfect. It is like a phonographic reproduction of a piece of music in which the machine stops before the record is all played. A speech without a good conclusion, like any unfinished or poorly finished piece of work, leaves the audience unsatisfied. The conclusion should draw the threads of thought together, and should bind and finish the fabric of a speech.

To soothe. With this completeness, the conclusion sometimes seeks to bring repose after intense interest and strong feeling; seeks to calm and sooth the audience after excitement and differences of opinion; seeks to leave them conciliated, and bound to the speaker and his thoughts. In the following splendid conclusion of Beecher's Liverpool Speech, the student will notice how strongly the speaker draws the audience to himself and his subject by his spirit of frankness, uprightness, square-dealing, and good-will.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I have finished the exposition of this troubled subject. No man can unveil the future; no man can tell what revolutions

are about to break upon the world; no man can tell what destiny belongs to France, nor to any of the European powers; but one thing is certain, that in the exigencies of the future there will be combinations and recombinations, and that those nations that are of the same faith, the same blood, and the same substantial interests, ought not to be alienated from each other, but ought to stand together. I do not say that you ought not to be in the most friendly alliance with France or with Germany; but I do say that your own children, the offspring of England, ought to be nearer to you than any people of strange tongue. If there have been any feelings of bitterness in America, let me tell you they have been excited, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that Great Britain was going to intervene between us and our lawful struggle. With the evidence that there is no such intention, all bitter feelings will pass away. ***And now in the future it is the work of every good man and patriot not to create divisions, but to do the things that will make for peace. On our part it shall be done. On your part it ought to be done; and when in any of the convulsions that come upon the world, Great Britain finds herself struggling single-handed against the gigantic powers that spread oppression and darkness, there ought to be such cordiality that she can turn and say to her first born and most illustrious child, 'Come!' I will not say that England can not again, as hitherto, single-handed, manage any power, but I will say that England and America together for religion and liberty are a match for the world."