Public Speaking | Page 3

a carefully considered proposition, who can adapt their
conversation or arguments to every changing condition, cannot be
emphasized too strongly.
Speech an Acquired Ability. We frequently regard and discuss speech
as a perfectly natural attribute of all human beings. In some sense it is.

Yet an American child left to the care of deaf-mutes, never hearing the
speech of his own kind, would not develop into a speaker of the native
language of his parents. He doubtless would be able to imitate every
natural sound he might hear. He could reproduce the cry or utterance of
every animal or bird he had ever heard. But he would no more speak
English naturally than he would Arabic. In this sense, language is not a
natural attribute as is hunger. It is an imitative accomplishment
acquired only after long years of patient practice and arduous effort.
Some people never really attain a facile mastery of the means of
communication. Some mature men and women are no more advanced
in the use of speech than children of ten or fifteen. The practice is
life-long. The effort is unceasing.
A child seems to be as well adapted to learning one language as another.
There may be certain physical formations or powers inherited from a
race which predispose the easier mastery of a language, but even these
handicaps for learning a different tongue can be overcome by imitation,
study, and practice. Any child can be taught an alien tongue through
constant companionship of nurse or governess. The second generation
of immigrants to this country learns our speech even while it may
continue the tongue of the native land. The third generation--if it mix
continuously with speakers of English--relinquishes entirely the
exercise of the mother tongue. The succeeding generation seldom can
speak it, frequently cannot even understand it.
Training to Acquire Speech Ability. The methods by which older
persons may improve their ability to speak are analogous to those just
suggested as operative for children, except that the more mature the
person the wider is his range of models to imitate, of examples from
which to make deductions; the more resources he has within himself
and about him for self-development and improvement. A child's
vocabulary increases rapidly through new experiences. A mature
person can create new surroundings. He can deliberately widen his
horizon either by reading or association. The child is mentally alert. A
man can keep himself intellectually alert. A child delights in his use of
his powers of expression. A man can easily make his intercourse a
source of delight to himself and to all with whom he comes in contact.

A child's imagination is kept stimulated continually. A man can
consciously stimulate either his imagination or his reason. In the
democracy of childhood the ability to impress companions depends to a
great extent upon the ability to speak. There is no necessity of
following the parallel any farther.
Good speakers, then, are made, not born. Training counts for as much
as natural ability. In fact if a person considers carefully the careers of
men whose ability to speak has impressed the world by its preeminence
he will incline to the conclusion that the majority of them were not to
any signal extent born speakers at all. In nearly all cases of great
speakers who have left records of their own progress in this powerful
art their testimony is that without the effort to improve, without the
unceasing practice they would have always remained no more marked
for this so-called gift than all others.
Overcoming Drawbacks. According to the regularly repeated tradition
the great Greek orator, Demosthenes, overcame impediments that
would have daunted any ordinary man. His voice was weak. He lisped,
and his manner was awkward. With pebbles in his mouth he tried his
lungs against the noise of the dashing waves. This strengthened his
voice and gave him presence of mind in case of tumult among his
listeners. He declaimed as he ran uphill. Whether these traditions be
true or not, their basis must be that it was only by rigorous training that
he did become a tolerable speaker. The significant point, however, is
that with apparent handicaps he did develop his ability until he became
great.
Charles James Fox began his parliamentary career by being decidedly
awkward and filling his speeches with needless repetitions, yet he
became renowned as one of Great Britain's most brilliant speakers and
statesmen.
Henry Clay clearly describes his own exercises in self-training when he
was quite a grown man.
"I owe my success in life to one single fact, namely, at the age of
twenty-seven I commenced, and continued for years, the practice of

daily reading and speaking upon the contents of some historical or
scientific book. These offhand efforts were made sometimes in a corn
field, at others