deep hearty laugh is produced. Fourth, he should repeatedly inhale and exhale a small quantity of breath quickly as in panting. The speed and abruptness of these inhalations and exhalations can be varied to suit the individual. Fifth, he should read and speak vigorous selections from oratory and other literature, making a conscious effort to keep the extreme upper part of the chest firm and passive. If the speaker masters deep breathing, he will greatly increase his control over the breath, and, hence, over the main energy used in the production of speech. The importance of perfect control of the breath in speaking cannot be overestimated. The muscles that control the breathing bear the same relation to the voice as the muscles of the arm and hand bear to the tones of a violin. The violinist needs power to bow the strings very slowly and gently at times, and at other times to bow them quickly and heavily. So the speaker needs power to strike some tones abruptly and with great vigor, and the power to touch other tones very softly. He needs power to stop or catch the breath quickly, or to allow it to be sighed away. This power comes only through deep breathing. Deep breathing, made vigorous and placed under perfect control by practice, added to properly formed and properly placed tones, will give the speaker power to make his speech distinct. Purity Economy of Breath. With the proper formation and placing of the tones and complete breath control, will come increased vocal purity. The proper forma tion and placing of the sounds will eliminate many impure vocal noises in the throat and nose, and will give the voice a clearer, more musical ring; while these with perfect control of the breath will prevent the wheezy leakage of air through the vocal organs. In addition to this the speaker should increase the purity of the voice by trying to turn into correct speech-tones every bit of air forced from the lungs. Every ounce of air pressure should be utilized in the production of speech-sounds, words, or phrases. Except in certain physical and emotional conditions such as exhaustion and fear, the pauses should not be used for the idle escape of breath, but for holding or catching the breath as the case demands. Here again, deep breathing well controlled is essential to success. Relaxation of the Throat. Again, the speaker should increase the purity of his voice by relaxing the muscles about the throat, and by trying to remove all feeling of constriction around the base of the tongue and the larynx. He should do the work of speaking, not with the muscles of the throat, but with the muscles about the front part of the mouth and the lower part of the lungs. He should not try to grasp the sounds with the throat, but with the lips and the tip of the tongue. The air passage from the opening at the lips to the center of the lungs should feel free and unobstructed except by the action of the lips and the forward parts of the tongue. The soft palate should not be allowed to hang down lazily so as to turn the stream of tone into the nose. Serious obstructions, like enlarged tonsils or adenoids, should be removed. The air stream should be given free flow from the bottom of the lungs over the vocal organs out of the mouth. If the speaker will inhale very slowly with the mouth open, as in deep breathing, he will feel the relaxed condition of the throat necessary for the greatest purity of tone. He should practice speaking with the throat in this open, relaxed condition, free from all vocal cramp. Volume A voice may be distinct and pure and yet lack the volume necessary to make it effective. It may be a small thin voice. Practice to make the breathing deep and strong, and to relax the air cavities in the upper part of the chest, throat, and front of the nose will do much to increase the volume. The fullness of the voice depends very largely upon the amount of inclosed air that vibrates during speech. In a thin voice a very small amount of air in the front part of the mouth seems to vibrate, while in a fuller voice the air in the back of the mouth, front of the nose, and upper part of the chest seems to vibrate. If the speaker will sound the ē as in me, faintly, and then sound the ä as in father, heartily and vigorously, he will notice this difference in fullness. With this experiment as a basis, he will soon learn to distinguish between his "thin voice" and his "full voice," and by conscious effort can develop the latter. Again, the speaker needs to avoid putting on a big voice-forcing the tone into the throat and chest. With his voice freed from impurities in tone, and from imperfections in the shaping and placing of tone and in breath control, and with his own best everyday voice as a center, he should try to add larger and larger circles of volume until the remote cavities of his face and chest seem to vibrate. He should not move the voice from the front of the mouth to the nose, throat, or chest, but should make the resonators in the nose, throat, and chest reinforce the resonance in the front part of the mouth. Before he strives for volume, however, he should see that he has a fair measure of distinctness and purity. Directness Conversing with the Audience. A fourth characteristic of a good voice which the speaker should understand and try to perfect, is directness. Without this quality, the qualities of distinctness, purity, and volume prove ineffective. The speaker should talk as to an audience, and not to himself. His tones should be objective rather than subjective. He should be wide. awake to the presence of an audience, and should have a strong desire to communicate every idea to that audience. His own feelings should not be allowed to override that spirit of communication. He should avoid an absent-minded, dreamy, far-away tone. A public speech should not be a public soliloquy, a trance, or a somnambulation. Every word essential to the thought should be spoken freely, for the benefit of the audience, and not for the relief of the speaker. The speaker should not allow himself to be so overawed by the occasion that his tones become solemn or funereal. His voice should rise and fall in pitch with the same spontaneous inflections and variations as are heard in the best conversational speech,— conversation that is interesting and animated, conver sation with a friend whom he had not seen for some time and to whom he had much to tell. He would not think of intoning news to his friend, neither should he chant his speech before an audience. He should speak to them with the searching tones of keen conversation, -the best conversation magnified and dignified. Directness should not be allowed to reduce public conversation to unanimated colloquial talk. Getting Close to Individuals in the Audience. Directness in tone may be developed, first, by talking to a person close at hand. If a speaker had a tendency to "preach" or "declaim," he should avoid practice in a large, bare hall until he has learned to talk to person close to him. A large hall demands greater energy and volume than a small one, and many speakers find difficulty in increasing their energy and volume without becoming indirect. The vastness of the audienceroom makes the speaker talk for his audience as a mass rather than to them as individuals. When a speaker practices for directness in a large hall, he should begin his practice by conversing with an imaginary person standing beside him on the platform. He should then try to talk to an imaginary person on a front seat, then to a small group of individuals on the front seats, then to a larger group farther away, and so on until he is able to talk to an imaginary person in the back of the room or to the whole audience, with the same tones of close contact used in speaking to the individual beside him on the platform. His tones should seem to bring the farthest auditors close to him. Occasionally, he should have a critic present. If his tones become indirect, the critic can stop him, and ask |