these biographical excerpts is that these men started from ordinary conditions to make themselves into forceful thinkers with powers of convincing expression. They overcame handicaps. They strengthened their voices. They learned how to prepare and arrange material. They made themselves able to explain topics to others. They knew so well the reasons for their own belief that they could convince others.

In a smaller way, to a lesser degree, any person can do the same thing, and by the same or similar methods. Barring some people who have physical defects or nervous diseases, any person who has enough brains to grasp an idea, to form an opinion, or to produce a thought, can be made to speak well. The preceding sentence says "barring some people who have physical defects" because not all so handicapped at the beginning need despair of learning to improve in speaking ability. By systems in which the results appear almost miraculous the dumb are now taught to speak. Stutterers and stammerers become excellent deliverers of speeches in public. Weak voices are strengthened. Hesitant expressions are made coherent. Such marvels of modern science belong, however, to special classes and institutions. They are cited here to prove that in language training today practically nothing is impossible to the teacher with knowledge and patience in educating students with alertness and persistence.

Practical Help. This book attempts to provide a guide for such teachers and students. It aims to be eminently practical. It is intended to help students to improve in speech. It assumes that those who use it are able to speak their language with some facility—at least they can pronounce its usual words. That and the realization that one is alive, as indicated by a mental openness to ideas and an intellectual alertness about most things in the universe, are all that are absolutely required of a beginner who tries to improve in speaking. Practically all else can be added unto him.

As this volume has a definite aim it has a simple practical basis. It will not soar too far above the essentials. It tries not to offer an elaborate explanation of an enthymeme when the embryonic speaker's knees are knocking together so loudly that he can not hear the instructor's correcting pronunciation of the name. It takes into account that when a beginner stands before an audience—and this is true not only the first time—even his body is not under his control. Lips grow cold and dry; perspiration gushes from every pore of the brow and runs down the face; legs grow weak; eyes see nothing; hands swell to enormous proportions; violent pains shoot across the chest; the breath is confined within the lungs; from the clapper-like tongue comes only a faint click. Is it any wonder that under such physical agonies the mind refuses to respond—rather, is incapable of any action whatever?

Speech Based on Thought and Language. Every speech is a result of the combination of thought and language, of material and expression. It would be quite possible to begin with considerations of the thought content of speeches—the material; but this book begins with the other;—the language, the expression. If this order have no other advantage, it does possess this one;—that during the informal discussions and expressions of opinion occasioned by the early chapters and exercises, members of the class are attaining a feeling of ease in speaking among themselves which will later eradicate a great deal of the nervousness usually experienced when speaking before the class. In addition, some attention to such topics as voice, tone, pronunciation, common errors, use of the dictionary, vocabulary, may instil habits of self-criticism and observation which may save from doubt and embarrassing mistakes later.

EXERCISES

1. Recall some recent speech you heard. In parallel columns make lists of its excellences and deficiencies.

2. Give the class an account of the occasion, the purpose of the speaker, and his effect upon his audience, or upon you.

3. Explain how children learn to speak.

4. From your observation give the class an account of how young children enlarge their vocabularies.

5. Using the material of this chapter as the basis of your remarks, show the value of public speaking.

6. Of what value is public speaking to women?

7. What effects upon speeches by women will universal suffrage have?

8. Choose some profession—as law, engineering—and show how an ability to speak may be of value in it.

9. Choose some business position, and show how an ability to speak is a decided advantage in it.

10. What is the best method of acquiring a foreign language? For example, how shall the alien learn English?

11. Choose some great man whom you admire. Show how he became a speaker. Or give an account of one of his speeches.

12. Show the value of public speaking to a girl—in school; in business; in other careers.

13. Explain the operation of a dictaphone.

14. How can training in public speaking help an applicant for a position?

15. Explain the sentence quoted from Bacon's essay on studies.

CHAPTER II

THE VOICE

Organs of Speech. Although the effects produced by the human voice are myriad in their complexity, the apparatus involved in making the sounds which constitute speech is extremely simple. In construction it has been usually compared to an organ pipe, a comparison justifiable for imparting a non-technical understanding of its operation.

An organ pipe is a tube in which a current of air passing over the edge of a piece of metal causes it to vibrate, thus putting into motion the column of air in the pipe which then produces a note. The operating air is forced across the sounding piece of metal from a bellows. The tube in which the thin sounding plate and the column of air vibrate acts as a resonator. The resulting sound depends upon various sizes of the producing parts. If the tube is quite long the sound is low in pitch. If the tube is short the sound is high. Stopping the end of the pipe or leaving it open alters the pitch. A stopped pipe gives a note an octave lower than an open pipe of the same length. The amount of the vibrating plate which is allowed to move also determines the pitch of a note. If the air is under great pressure the note is loud. If the air is under little pressure the note is soft.

It is quite easy to transfer this explanation to the voice-producing apparatus in the human body.

To the bellows correspond the lungs from which the expelled air is forced upwards through the windpipe. The lungs are able to expel air regularly and gently, with no more expense of energy than ordinary breathing requires. But the lungs can also force air out with tremendous power—power enough to carry sound over hundreds of yards. In ordinary repose the outward moving breath produces no sound whatever, for it meets in its passage no obstruction.

Producing Tone. At the upper end of the windpipe is a triangular chamber, the front angle of which forms the Adam's apple. In this are the vocal cords. These cords are two tapes of membrane which can be brought closely together, and by muscular tension stretched until passing air causes them to vibrate. They in turn cause the air above them to vibrate, much as the air in an organ pipe vibrates. Thus tone is produced.

The air above the vocal cords may fill all the open spaces above the larynx—the throat, the mouth, the nasal cavity in the head, the nostrils. This rather large amount of air, vibrating freely, produces a sound low in pitch. The larger the cavities