The Training of a Public Speaker | Page 2

distinguished as a teacher of eloquence, bearing away the palm in his
department from all his rivals, and associating his name, even to a
proverb, with preeminence in the art. By Domitian he was invested
with the insignia and title of consul, and is, moreover, celebrated as the
first public instructor who, in virtue of the endowment by Vespasian,
received a regular salary from the imperial exchequer. He is supposed
to have died about 118. The great work of Quintilian is a complete
system of rhetoric, in twelve books, entitled De Institutione Oratoria
Libre XII, or sometimes Institutiones Oratoriæ, dedicated to his friend
Marcellus Victorius, himself a celebrated orator, and a favorite at Court.
This production bears throughout the impress of a clear, sound
judgment, keen discrimination, and pure taste, improved by extensive
reading, deep reflection, and long practise."
The text used for this condensation is from the version of J. Patsall,
A.M., London, 1774, according to the Paris edition by Professor Rollin.
Many parts of the original work have been re-written or abridged, while
several chapters have been entirely omitted.
GRENVILLE KLEISER. New York City, August, 1919.

CONTENTS

PAGE RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE 15
THE EXORDIUM OR INTRODUCTION 43
THE NARRATION 67
DIVISION AND ARGUMENT 85
THE PERORATION 99
PASSION AND PERSUASION 119
THE STUDY OF WORDS 133
ELEGANCE AND GRACE 145
COMPOSITION AND STYLE 173
COPIOUSNESS OF WORDS 197
KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE 229
CONCLUSION 247

RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE
WHAT RHETORIC IS
Rhetoric has been commonly defined as "The power of persuading."
This opinion originated with Isocrates, if the work ascribed to him be
really his; not that he intended to dishonor his profession, tho he gives
us a generous idea of rhetoric by calling it the workmanship of
persuasion. We find almost the same thing in the Gorgias of Plato, but
this is the opinion of that rhetorician, and not of Plato. Cicero has
written in many places that the duty of an orator is to speak in "a
manner proper to persuade"; and in his books of rhetoric, of which
undoubtedly he does not approve himself, he makes the end of
eloquence to consist in persuasion.

But does not money likewise persuade? Is not credit, the authority of
the speaker, the dignity of a respectable person, attended with the same
effect? Even without speaking a word, the remembrance of past
services, the appearance of distress, a beautiful aspect, make deep
impressions on minds and are decisive in their favor.
Did Antonius, pleading the cause of M. Aquilius, trust to the force of
his reasons when he abruptly tore open his garment and exposed to
view the honorable wounds he received fighting for his country? This
act of his forced streams of tears from the eyes of the Roman people,
who, not able to resist so moving a spectacle, acquitted the criminal.
Sergius Galba escaped the severity of the laws by appearing in court
with his own little children, and the son of Gallus Sulpitius, in his arms.
The sight of so many wretched objects melted the judges into
compassion. This we find equally attested by some of our historians
and by a speech of Cato. What shall I say of the example of Phryne,
whose beauty was of more service in her cause than all the eloquence
of Hyperides; for tho his pleading was admirable in her defense, yet
perceiving it to be without effect, by suddenly laying open her tunic he
disclosed the naked beauty of her bosom, and made the judges sensible
that she had as many charms for them as for others. Now, if all these
instances persuade, persuasion, then, can not be the end of rhetoric.
Some, therefore, have seemed to themselves rather more exact who, in
the main of the same way of thinking, define rhetoric as the "Power of
persuading by speaking." It is to this that Gorgias, in the book above
cited, is at last reduced by Socrates. Theodectes does not much differ
from them, if the work ascribed to him be his, or Aristotle's. In this
book the end of rhetoric is supposed to be "The leading of men
wherever one pleases by the faculty of speaking." But this definition is
not sufficiently comprehensive. Many others besides the orator
persuade by their words and lead minds in whatever direction they
please.
Some, therefore, as Aristotle, setting aside the consideration of the end,
have defined rhetoric to be "The power of inventing whatever is
persuasive in a discourse." This definition is equally as faulty as that

just mentioned, and is likewise defective in another respect, as
including only invention, which, separate from elocution, can not
constitute a speech.
It appears from Plato's Gorgias that he was far from regarding rhetoric
as an art of ill tendency, but that, rather it is, or