1. Speech From A Sound Mind And A Sound Body Is Healthy.

The emphasis now is upon consistency. If you are right you want to be understood as being right. If you are fit, physically and mentally fit, your chances for being appreciated as such, are good. A speaker must be genuine if he wishes to earn the respect of his hearers. Certainly he would not be known for his persistent sound signifying nothing, or for his much speaking upon nothing in particular, or for his vain repetitions. The whole man makes the speech. Audiences are no longer so hopeful about hearing "hundred per centers", but they value co-ordination, consistency, health.

If we could direct future speakers from their very early years onward, we should be solicitous about their development of wholesome habits of living. We should be happy if their home life and influences were genial, ethical, and envigorating. The habits of sleeping in a bedroom well ventilated, of daily bathing, of the regular care of the teeth and hair and finger-nails, of outdoor exercise through cooperative play, of early bedtimes, of moderate eating of simple foods, of the constant use and not abuse of the body, are tremendously important.

It is depressing to try to help a person ambitious to succeed as an orator who has been neither well born, nor well bred, nor well brought up. It cannot be denied that

he starts with a handicap. He must reform; and the day to begin the reformation is today.

Two chaps of twenty-two, one of summers, the other of winters, joined the same class in public speaking a few months ago. One had enjoyed and made the most of almost every advantage afforded him in environment, training, and opportunity. His figure was as straight as an Indian's. He stood about five feet nine in his cleated football shoes, and his weight was about 180 net. He was as tanned as open air, wind, and sunshine could make him. His disposition was merry, buoyant, adventuresome. His voice was strong, sonorous, untrained but flexible. As he would mount to the platform he would almost bounce to position because of exuberance of health and spirits.

The other fellow was younger in years than in anything else. He smoked too much. He was underweight, stoopshouldered, not well built up in muscle or nerves. A slight limp made it almost impossible to force him upon the platform, because he was conscious of himself; although he was anxious to excel as an orator. He seemed to have nothing in particular to say, but he was particular that he should be taught how to say it well.

If you were a teacher, with which young fellow would you prefer to work? Possibly you might enjoy accepting the challenge of attempting to convert an ear into a purse; but the path of less resistance is a happy path to follow. Would you not be tempted to rate the healthy chap's marks on a sliding scale upward, and the marks of the lad who was beaten at the start on a descending scale?

Failure in college speaking due to poor health comes from the usual lack of vigorous or regular exercise, lack of sleep, too many parties, over-exertion, even over-study or inefficient study habits. Occasionally, a student becomes generally over-trained, tense, tight in his brain, logy in his action, pepless. As the causes are various; so are

the remedies; systematized study, a daily sweat, less candy, fewer sundaes, a vacation from cigarettes, a less worried. attitude toward the curriculum, some mild dissipation, a change of scenery.

Project. Give an honest confession of why you are less qualified for speech performance than: Gene Tunney, Borotra, Bobbie Jones, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Gertrude Ederle, Helen Wills . . . Concentrate upon the consideration of physical and mental health. There should be a lift in your speech before you finish, and aspiring crescendo. Let your voice demonstrate your varying states of mind and feeling.

2. A Champion Trains Before Each Battle.

It is no disadvantage at all to a speaker to have a rugged physique. If he be a human leviathan, he need not be ashamed of his bulk; he should draw himself up to his full height, square his shoulders, and strike out like the superman that he might be. If he be tall, that is an advantage, but one of the saddest sights on the platform is a tall man or a tall woman with stooped shoulders, still more stooped before an audience. If such a person only realized how much he is envied by the lilliputians in his audience, he would stiffen his backbone and throw out his chest quickly.

If a speaker be typically athletic, that is no reason for acting the part of the uncivilized man of nature, the diamond in the rough who means to be so fair with his public that he will not give them an inferiority complex by over-topping them.

A person who refuses to take advantage of his natural resources lays himself open to suspicion. Is there some ulterior motive back of this false modesty? A big fellow, a strong fellow, a fine upstanding girl, a graceful and queenly woman should stand erect and let us bask in the radiance of his health or beauty.

Conversely, it is ridiculous to behold and listen to a stripling who is bumptious. Such a speaker's handicap is, of course, greater than is that of the heavyweight or "longfellow". Yet he can overcome it through physical and mental dignity, intensity, movement, a variety of emphasis, sincerity, beauty of voice, good nature, personal allure, humanized conversational qualities. .. Goliath had something to say, and he said it rather well; but David "crowned" him with a pebble; whereupon David became the orator of the day. Woodrow Wilson was a man of splendid stature, a scholar and a gentleman during every moment of his speeches; yet Roosevelt made up for his own lack of height by aggressiveness; and, as a New York Irish Democratic policeman said of him, "He knows the kind of geraniums that grow on back tenement fire escapes." Luis Angel Firpo is a mountain of a man; so is Jess Willard; but the reigning flyweight champion can draw a better gate, and his words into the microphone will be more attentively listened to than anything that the "pachyderm" might have to say.

For prolonged research, one needs a strong body as well as a strong will. It is an erroneous impresson which many college students have of A men and women, that they are "grinds", that they are "sharks", specialists in cerebral over-development. Research workers find it essential for their labors to spend some time each day on the court or fairway, in the pool, around the track, in the saddle, or even in the ring.

Vigor, animation, enthusiasm, courage are seldom successful of and by themselves in public speeches unless there is fortunate co-ordination of muscles. St. Paul complained about his tormenting physical handicap. He "made good", not because he was a paralytic, but because he was able, usually, to control that condition, in fact, any condition. The effect of his physical and mental health

upon an audience or upon the opposition is the most wholesome advantage upon which a speaker may rely.

There is something concerned with poise which is of even greater importance than merely the way you set yourself upon the platform. A bulky speaker with a squeaky voice is incongruous. A lilliputian who challenges all comers to mortal combat is amusing. A "bounding basque" all but standing on his head is an oratorical novelty, merely. A "weeping willow" who can cause us all to break down in tears even without her slicing onions is a sentimental comfort, but we tire of her. A speaker who radiates health and good cheer will hold his audience even after he has said his say.

Project. For your next speech go into training physically for a week just as though you were "getting into the pink" for an amateur boxing match. Put yourself on a nourishing diet; get ten hours of sleep each night, three of them before midnight; take a cool shower at 7 A.M., endure a few limbering up exercises, and shadow box for five minutes every day; pay such good attention to your lectures and laboratory demonstrations that your study time will be short; get in a variety of exercise each afternoon: run several miles, box, skip the rope, swim, toss the medicine ball, wrestle, play tennis and golf, row a boat; work on the content and make-up of your speech for an hour each day after supper; study, "rough-house", sing a little, then go to bed early. When you leap upon the platform at the end of your training, if your physical tone does not help you to make the best speech you have ever made, we miss our guess.

B. — PSYCHIC HEALTH

1. Speakers Aflame With Enthusiasm Should Seldom Be Extinguished.

Are you a fiery orator? Probably not; but if you are,