Extempore Speech: How to Acquire and Practice It

For the purpose of showing how completely speech of all kinds may be embraced in a brief skeleton, we place before the reader three addresses of the most varied characteristics,...

“What shall I do?” exclaims the young student who expects soon to face public audiences. “Shall I write out what I have to say, polish it as highly as possible, and then utter t...

The first extemporaneous speeches attempted should be of the simplest character. Too high an ideal formed at the outset may be very harmful by causing needless discouragement. T...

Persons are met every day who declare their belief in extempore speech—for others—but who are fully persuaded that the possibility of ever becoming effective speakers has been p...

Two kinds of preparation contribute to the production of eloquence. One is the preparation of the speaker, the other of the speech. The first is fully as important as the second...

Logic is either one of the most useful or one of the most useless acquisitions of the orator. As taught in the middle ages, with its barbarous jargon of symbols and terms, it ca...

When a fervent and successful discourse has been concluded there comes a feeling of inexpressible relief. The burden of an important speech rests with accumulating force upon th...

Although unwritten speech is popular and has innumerable arguments in its favor, many persons yet maintain that eloquence of the highest character cannot be reached without trus...

We now enter upon the most practical part of our subject. We have seen what natural qualities are indispensable, and how these, when possessed, can be improved by training. The...

Voice and gesture form the immediate link between the speaker and his audience. The value of good quality in both is sometimes over-estimated, though it is always considerable....

The time for the speech having arrived, we will now consider its separate parts. No division is better for our purpose than that employed in a previous part of this work—a three...

No part of the orator’s work is more important than that of constructing a good plan. If this is not well done the fullest success is impossible. In speech all thoughts are expr...

How may that boldness and confidence which is indispensable to an orator best be acquired? On your success in this direction, hinges all other kinds of improvement. So long as a...

Now that the plan is completed and fully written out, the next question arises as to what shall be done with it. It may either be used or abused. To read it to the audience or e...

The passage from the introduction to the discussion should be made smoothly and gradually. To accomplish this, and to strike the subject at just the right angle, continuing all...

Haying completed all your preparations, you now anxiously await the commencement of the intellectual battle. This period is often a severe trial. Men who are physically brave so...

The preceding chapter dealt with those faculties which provide the materials of speech, and in one sense was scarcely appropriate to a treatise designed to show the best modes o...

The laws which govern extemporaneous speech are so generally applicable to all forms of address that only a few things which are peculiar to each need be considered before point...

After the subject upon which we are to speak has been determined the logical order of preparation is, first, gathering material; second, selecting what is most fitting and arran...

Comparatively little attention is paid to the direct cultivation of extemporaneous oratory in schools and colleges. Indirectly, much help is given by teaching many things which...

There is a widespread opinion that all study of the mode of oratory is unmanly, and leads to the substitution of artifice and adornment for simplicity and power. “Let a man have...

However numerous and varied may be the classes of those who contemplate extempore speech, they are all confronted by one common difficulty. Whether a boy makes his maiden effort...

Nothing adds more to the brilliancy and effectiveness of oratory than the royal faculty of imagination. This weird and glorious power deals with truth as well as fiction and giv...

All popular and effective discourses must possess at least one of the above qualities. In ordinary speeches they do not present themselves spontaneously, but must be sought out...

It does not follow from anything we have said that the pen should be discarded by the extempore speaker. Because he is not obliged to write each word, he should not feel excused...