Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/31

thought, it is necessary that sane but forceful sentences should be employed. Of course, in these formal speeches there is no place for either "picturesque slang" 8. Style and Diction or coarseness. But the most apparent and the most blameworthy weakness in formal public address to-day is a kind of vapid prating, mere twaddle, suggestive of absence of downright hard thinking. Now it is assumed that the student will observe carefully the general rules usually given in his English course concerning Clearness, Force, Dignity, and so on. But because of the peculiarities of oral discourse, it is recommended especially that the following rhetorical devices be much employed in these speeches: Antithesis often enables the speaker to make perfectly plain through contrast what otherwise probably would be obscure; the Rhetorical Question and Answer afford variety not merely to the style, but to voice and action in the presentation; Rhetorical Imagery is a great aid to Public Address ; e. g., for the use of Metaphor Professor Clark ascribes the following reasons :

"First, to aid the memory; second, to aid the understanding; third, to impress the feelings; fourth, to excite surprise or curiosity ; fifth, to secure brevity and smoothness."^[1] The writer does not know just now of another work more brief and clear covering the whole matter of style than that referred to. Part n of that text will be peculiarly significant to the student because written by a man at once a most effective speaker, a successful teacher of the art of Composition for Oral Delivery, and a rhetorician of rare scholarship.

Because of the limitations of this article it is impossible to mention in detail further qualities of style. It is assumed, as has been suggested, that the student will bring to bear his best skill looking especially toward Clearness, Force, Dignity, etc, as developed in his English Composition training. It is to be emphasized, all the while, that the object of the public appeal is to do, not merely to he something : that the object is to get the hearer to act.