ers if they had ever heard of the Australian gallywumpus. "No!" they replied. "Oh WELL", said he, "then I'll tell you all about it." And the rest was easy going for the comedian. But you are honest.

2. One Evidence Of Effective Human Nature Is The Psychology Of The Cleared Desk.

When an orator's mind is muddled, a member of the audience usually feels like booing him off the platform or like going up there and finishing the performance himself. If a message can be delivered in a hundred words, the hundred and first is superfluous. If the Lost Battalion incident should be made into an opera, the American major's negative reply to the Germans' ultimatum might require a thousand words and two octaves; but it was a good story (until it was corrected) because all Whittlesee is reported to have said was, "Go to hell!" General Sherman knew more of what he was talking about when he used the same emphatic word than have any modern pacifists.

Some pedants know so much and have done so little that they are merely walking encyclopedias. Some careful students have cubby-hole minds, neat, and orderly, often too immaculate. A man or woman preparing for a speech occasion should keep his mind open from the beginning of his preparation to the moment when he mounts the platform and even through to the conclusion. It is true that the inquiring mind sometimes causes a speaker to be less impassioned than a dogmatist; but he is more worthy of respect. New light sometimes generates new convictions. It is easier for an orator to be honest with his public than it is for him to be honest with himself.

Just as the cleared desk of a "big business" executive tells the story of how he came to grasp the top rung of the ladder, so the orderly mind of a speaker like John Davis

or Calvin Coolidge or John Haynes Holmes partly explains the hold which they have upon their audiences.

Project. Collect all of the information that you can upon: Freshman Week, Brick and Mortar vs. Better Teachers, The Quarter Mile Sprint, Infighting, The Delayed Forward, Suppose Students Hired Their Professors Clean up and clear your study desk. Spread out your data on it. Throw away the "junk". Organize what is essential. Write an outline and a manuscript. Write speakers' notes from the manuscript. Write simpler notes. Memorize notes. your Practice your speech ten times.

1. After Grammar School, Writing Notes Is A Virtue.

Macaulay never forgot any slightest detail. This quality made him as many friends as enemies. Roosevelt and Elbert Hubbard had an uncanny ability to associate names with personalities. An enterprising lecturer in Hingham, Massachusetts, lacks memorizing ability; so he takes notes at lectures, from books, after private conversations, reports to his index cards every bon mot and bright idea, fills his files with enough data for a hundred years' use.

A good habit is to carry a little leather case containing a dozen 3 x 5 inches index cards in the coat pocket wherever you go. Carry a fountain pen, too. Some of your records, impressions, inspirations will come out of your own cranium. File completed cards in a classified index system cabinet. Now you are applying the scientific method to training for speech.

Project. Invest $2 in a steel card-index box, 100 cards, 30 tickler cards. Begin to collect data on your hobby. A year from now make a first class talk on it.

2. An Outline Does More For The Speech Than The Skeleton Does For The Body.

A public speaker whose talk is just thrown together should be denied the platform. A speech outline is necessary for the same reason that an architect's plan is necessary. It is a repository for data which are to be used; it is a framework; it is a guide during the composition of the manuscript. It is generic in that it exists mentally even before pencil is put to paper, and it continues to keep the life principle of the address functioning; it is organic because it preserves both the substance and the structure of the talk and retains only data and ideas which properly belong; it is logical in form even if the speaker's method is one of emotional persuasion rather than of argumentation, at least, it provides a means for the preparer of the speech to record deductive and inductive development; it is progressive because it shows the exact path and methods of procedure which the speech-maker is going to use when he writes his manuscript and when he addresses his audeince. Above all, the making of outlines is excellent discipline for one who has a time limit for speaking, who must be sure of himself before he risks a public appearance, and who values the literary importance of unity and coherence and

movement.

Topical sentence outlines are the only safe kind for beginners. They are the best for experienced speakers. Consult J. A. Winans, "Public Speaking", Chapter XII, on Outlines before you construct your next outline. Be sure that each statement says something, that it includes at least subject and predicate. Leave it only when you feel sure that a year from now you could understand it as well as you do today. Before you have come to the point of writing the final draft of your outline you should have experienced all of the travail which is necessary before you

have won your way to a conclusion. For the final draft. should now be able to write the conclusion first.

you

The scheme may be something like this. Remember, use complete sentences throughout:

INTRODUCTION

State your thesis, tell an appropriate story, recount an anecdote which gets you on into the main body of your speech.

BODY

A. This party may be expository. Describe, explain. I. Here is an interesting, perhaps sensational feature of your subject.

a.

Tell why it is especially interesting.

1. This anecdote illustrates what you mean by especially interesting.

2. This analogy is appropriate. It advances your exposition.

b. Give another reason why this feature is interesting or sensational.

2.

1. Expose an objection which has often been advanced against this point of view. Remind your listeners why this consideration is especially timely today. Mention how you happened to hear of this detail.

3.

II. Here is another, perhaps not so interesting or sensational feature of your subject which you include because its consideration is essential. Naturally, you don't suggest that it is not so interesting; you humanize it and make your audience appreciate it.

III. (Perhaps) Subdivide as above, according to the requirements of the subject.

B. This part will probably be argumentative, persuasive, convincing, more appealing, swifter in its progression than Part A.

I. Here you might develop an argumentative syllogism.

1.

2.

You restate it, enforcing the main point. You interpret it as bearing upon the subject of your talk.

II. Here you might persuade the audience by appeals to sentiment, to tradition, to loyalty, to their highest idealism.

a.

You show that you have broken no valuable ties with the past.

1.

You correct a popular but erroneous impression.

2. You indicate how you are strengthening

a worthy tradition.

b. You might wish to mention national pride, economic security, ethical standards, future benefits .