as a means to other ends, speech-making claims the attention of every ambitious student.

Opportunity

Let us look for a moment at the opportunity the college student has to develop speech-making power. While in college he has time. Then his speech habits are still flexible. Then his ideas are expanding and maturing, and he may learn to marshal, organize, and use these ideas in the best way. His style is fixing itself, and needs conscious exercise and guidance. He has a chance for systematic study and helpful criticism. In classroom and in contests, he has a chance to try himself out. If he fails, he is not denied another chance by an exacting public, but is required to speak again and again until failure is changed into success. Here in the college classroom is the golden opportunity to develop speech-making power.

That this power can be developed is beyond question. Year after year timid, phlegmatic students are gaining self-confidence, interest in ideas, earnestness for truth, and power to speak well, in classes in speechmaking. As a single example, take the case of a senior who entered such a class. He stood on one foot like a tired horse at a hitching post, thrust his hands into his pockets, looked at the floor and out of the window, and spoke in an indistinct monotone. The experience was painful to both the speaker and the audience. Yet at the end of a semester's work, he was able to speak with comfort to himself and in a direct and interesting manner. His case is typical. While very few students without class training or practical experience can speak easily and effectively,

very few who pursue the study of speech-making beyond the primary stages fail to become reasonably good speakers. Even many apparently seriously handicapped are becoming efficient speakers.

V. STANDARDS OF STUDY

While the possibilities for development in speechmaking are great, the student who wishes to make himself most efficient must recognize certain simple and homely truths. In the first place, he must realize that there is no get-rich-quick road to success in public speaking. He must expect to spend time and hard work. While a little work put into public speaking often brings marked results, nothing requires more earnest, patient, and enduring effort than the development of the best speech-power. A student gets out of public speaking what he puts into it, and if his effort is small and cheap, the results will be relatively small and cheap. Dabbling must necessarily mean shallow attainment. The student should realize that a good speech is more than mere talk; more than an idle working of the jaw and an aimless swinging of the arms. It is more than mere knowledge; more than an unanimated action of the brain. It is more than lofty and impressive feeling. It demands the best of the whole man; the best combination of mind, heart, and body. It demands clear and emphatic thinking, warm and earnest feeling, and a body made efficient as an agent of expression. All of these things are important. Any one of them is a large problem in itself. Speech-making is not a little man's or a lazy man's endeavor, but that of one with large latent

powers who is willing to do his best to bring them to the fullest realization.

The second homely truth that the student should recognize is this: the greatest growth is possible only to one who does his best. A student of speech-making should not be contented with a commonplace standard of work. He should never be satisfied with speaking just to fulfill a requirement or to kill time. He should regard every speech as an opportunity to "make good." This means that he should not measure his success by the weaknesses and failure of other students, but should judge himself by the best that is in him. He should not ask, "Am I better than others ?" but, "Am I doing my best? Am I surpassing myself?" To the bright student comes a temptation to be satisfied with the level of the weaker members of a class. To avoid this he should try to rise as far as possible above the average standard of the class. He has no right to dillydally with himself, for the possibilities of a brilliant mind may be weakened and stunted by the constant repetition of mediocre work.

In connection with his classroom work he should study to become familiar with the principles and problems of successful speech-making. He should listen to the best public speakers, and should read and analyze speeches. He should study and read aloud masterpieces of poetry and the drama, in order to develop variety and expressiveness in speaking. He should read for general information, and for the stimulation of reflection and imagination. He should practice reading, writing, and speaking. His motto should be "Study a little, write a little, and speak a little every day."

By following this plan, his art of speech-making will grow; and when graduation comes, he will find himself equipped for successful speaking, just as a student of chemistry or engineering finds himself prepared in classroom and laboratory, by text-book and experiment, for success in chemistry or engineering.

CHAPTER II

THE SPEECH-MAKING LABORATORY

There are two things that a course in speech-making should give students. First, it should give them frequent, high-grade practice in making speeches from the platform, and second, it should give them adequate instruction and helpful criticism. The purpose of both is to develop the speech-making possibilities of each student. Instruction alone will not do this. Practice alone will not do it in the best and quickest way. Instruction must supplement practice; but instruction will be more significant and practice more purposeful if both go together with practice leading the way.

While it may seem more logical first to learn all about speech-making and then to make speeches, it is more practical to begin making speeches in the classroom as soon as the most fundamental instructions can be given and the work organized, and then to learn from speech to speech how to improve them. For this reason the classroom should be primarily a speech-making laboratory where experiments in making speeches are performed, and where text-books and lectures serve chiefly to perfect the experiments. With this thought in mind let us first consider the organization of the speech-making laboratory.