is this: relax whatever muscles are not needed to accomplish the thing you are trying to do. Use enough energy in the legs to stand on, and no more; those muscles which by their opposition cause the trembling at the knees must be relaxed; the legs must be content to stand and not run. Reduce the extra muscular tension in the back and hips; so also the tension of the arms, hands, and especially of the neck and face. Study what is involved in Strength AND Ease.

The cure for those speakers whose fright is genuine and extreme and seemingly hopeless is in beginning to speak while limp all over, except for the vocal apparatus. Start freed of any possible excess of muscular tension. Then gradually add a stiff back, legs strong enough to hold the body, arms falling just in place, but nothing more. Do the same with the rest of the muscle systems-hands, neck, and face. Practice this sort of thing until you have achieved control over each of these systems and can throw each into or out of gear as you please. Such control is the essence of intellectuality, mental strength, self-possession. It is the opposite extreme from the baby's general explosion; for he lives in a constant state of stage fright unless when totally at ease-especially asleep. This is the case when he howls, for one of the surest manifestations of fright in some green speakers is a disposition to roar. The cure is far from easy, either for the baby or for the student; but except for psychopaths it is entirely possible always.

RELIEF FOR STAGE FRIGHT

Here is a simple relief for initial stage fright, for that first devastating moment when you face the "sea of upturned faces": Merely find some easy, comfortable, everyday things for the hands to do. It seems strange, but it can be demonstrated over and over again that when your hands are occupied with simple, everyday tasks, you cannot harbor much embarrassment or stage fright. Pick up a book and glance at its title, run through the pages, turn it over, caress it all simply and comfortably-and you will feel at ease if you can keep yourself occupied. Naturally enough, if you are at ease, you are not stage frightened. The inter

esting point is that the easement and relief seem to start when the hands are made comfortable.

Shuffle papers, lay out your notes, brush something off the table, rearrange the furniture, set the vase of flowers out of the way, restack the books on the desk-plenty of little acts like these can be devised, and they all help. We have all seen it done many times-the preacher opening the Bible and marking his text with the purple satin ribbon, the teacher erasing the blackboard, the orator shaking out his handkerchief and wiping his unmoist brow, adjusting his coat sleeves, his tie, his hair, his glasses, twirling his watch charm, or taking a sip of water. The hands-in-the-pockets man jingles his loose change; the bobbed-haired contestant pushes back a stray lock; the fastidious man sees that the creases lie just so from knee to instep. And it all helps overcome stage fright because stage fright is a matter of doing unaccustomed and unplanned things just at the time when you want to do just what you want to do. Mastering the hands, strangely enough, offers a beginning of mastery of the whole body.

Audiences Chiefly Sympathetic.-One other bit of advice for the frightened novice is valuable: Your audience will not hurt you. Not one audience in ten thousand ever does anything unpleasant or harmful to the speaker. In all probability your audience is just as anxious as you to see you stand up like a man and do well. But they positively do not throw things or cause injury; not in your kind of society. So trust their good will and satisfy their prayers for you. Faith in them and faith in yourself are the best mental cures, to be applied with the bodily cure outlined above. The two combined ought to work salvation in even the worst of cases.

MUSCLE MEMORY

In order to make actions carry thought successfully, a speaker must cultivate muscle memory. Just as the eye when closed can see colors and lights and shapes, can picture a landscape or recall a picture or recreate the movement of a play, and the ear can hear past melodies or "a well-remembered voice," so muscles also have their memories.

A well-attuned body knows from memory what to do. Without muscle memory we could not even dress ourselves easily nor go about our daily tasks with any economy of motion; we could not draw, paint, play musical instruments, dance, nor get our food to our mouths.

So in order to act properly in speech and to make gestures successfully, it is at all times necessary to cultivate a muscle memory for these activities. This deliberate cultivation can be acquired only by putting conscious thought on the matter and by indulging in much practice; study alone will not do it. Merely reading a book and making up one's mind that one is going to do such and such is almost no help at all. One must go through the motions thoughtfully and repeatedly until the arms, hands, and other agents of bodily expression know how to behave without special guidance or special concentration of attention.

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Imagine situations into which you might be thrust and then get the right bodily set to meet them. In every case aim to be energetic enough to suggest the thought you have in mind, but watch yourself to see that you are not indulging in an over-use of stiffened muscles. Study every limb and joint to see if it is playing its part in getting the right coördination. Work for automatic action. Imagine yourself:

a. accusing one of wrongdoing;

b. defying a mob;

c. pleading for your life or the life of another;

d. facing an object of great frightfulness or danger;

e. asking a friend for a favor;

f. refusing some one's petition;

g. insisting that you are right;

h. demanding that men listen;
i. uttering a protest;

j. warning one of danger;

k. pointing out the truth of the matter;

1. praying for deliverance;

m. urging another to flee;

n. approaching with bad news;

o. hesitating which way to go;
p. dodging a missile;

q. fearing an attack;

r. feeling exalted and uplifted;

s. writhing with agony;

t. depressed in despair.

2. Do a moving-picture act. Devise a story that can be carried entirely by means of movement, and try to act it so that it suggests to observers the meaning you intend. Keep studying yourself to learn where your restrictions or excesses lie; then try by repetition of the action to overcome them. Continually work to get a coordination between your thought processes and general bodily action. Notice how much more easily thought works when the whole body is rightly set for thought. Also observe the whole feelings of reserve, bashfulness, and awkwardness wear off as you gain facility in getting the whole body and the thinking apparatus to work in unison and harmony.

3. While viewing exciting picture plays, games, circus, or vaudeville, or any other kind of alert bodily movement, observe the tensions and strains in your own body.

3a. Analyze these and describe them in a three-minute talk, illustrating by posture and movement.

4. Stand as before an audience and ascertain as far as possible what is the best combination of ease and strength necessary to a good platform presence. Use the trial and error method.

5. Indulge in any exercise that brings into play a large number of the muscles of the body-games, gymnastics, setting-up movements, esthetic dancing. All such activities help greatly in removing inhibitions from the mechanism of speech. Such activities are always carefully cultivated in special schools for expression and acting, and are at the bottom of much of their most successful work.

6. Prepare a three-minute speech. Deliver it with interest and enthusiasm; keep the body meanwhile relaxed enough for ease, but tensed enough for the energy you feel and wish to show. Suggested topics:

(a) A Needed College Reform.

(b) A National Need; State Need, or Municipal Need.

(c) My Political Hero.

(d) What Religion Will Do for You.

(e) Better Business Ethics Needed.

(f) Reform the Law.

(g) Stand by the Team.

(h) Vote for Our Candidate.

(i) Take Your Work More Seriously.
(j) The Political Situation.

(k) What I Get from My Studies.
(1) Opportunities for the Graduate.
(m) The Delights of Reading.

(n) A Heroic Deed.

(0) What is Life?

7. Commit and recite a passage of literature good for public reading, not doggerel or newspaper jingle; learn it well enough so that you can give considerable attention while reciting it to what the body is doing. Stand with a proper balance between ease and strength. Give visible evidence of interest in what you are saying, yet reveal both ease and vigor.

8. Fix on an odd character you know; devise several sentences that reveal his nature, using dialect and special idiom if need be; then adopt a characteristic voice and action for each sentence.

9. Practice adjusting yourself to a table, stand, or reading desk on the platform. Learn how to keep a hand on it without seeming to be weak or limp or sick. Also learn to get away from it without creating the impression that you are afraid of it.

10. Practice the use of a book to read from as you pick it up from a table or desk; or an outline on cards or papers. Move about freely and comfortably, yet with dignity and definiteness.

In these exercises do not be concerned only with making your position just what it ought to be. Concern yourself also with realizing the need of coöperation of total body and thought mechanism. Make an effort to get as far on toward ease and strength as you can without having to pay specific attention to any particular muscle, joint, or limb. Make it strictly an exercise in getting your whole self to work together.

11. Walk like:

(a) Friar Tuck.

(b) Macbeth on his way to Duncan's chamber.

(c) Touchstone.

(d) Shylock.

(e) Portia entering the court room.

(f) Launcelot Gobbo.

(g) The elder Gobbo.