FIG. 40.

CLASS TALK.

Relation of Elocution to a Complete American Education.

THE question is frequently asked, "What is education?"

"What constitutes a complete American education? " We find about as many different answers to this question as there are different writers upon the subject. Expressed simply, we regard the general term-e-lucation-as signifying that complete unfoldment and exercise of all the powers and faculties of the mind which will produce the most perfect types of cultured and self-governed men and women. Brilliant powers and faculties may be possessed but never brought into vigorous exercise. Keen and clear mental perceptions are only the result of persistent, oft-repeated, and unremitting effort, intelligently put forth by the earnest, hard-working, and untiring student. The prime object of an American education, to many, appears to be the promotion of earnest, vigorous thought, apart from its expression or transmission to others. The great and never-ceasing demand of the day is for "thinkers" and learned philosophers. Scarcely any attention seems to be paid, on the part of most of our educational writers, to that phase of a complete education which has to do with the intelligent and fluent expression of thought. Now, while we can most fully and heartily appreciate the vast importance of independent, self-reliant thought, yet we believe it even much more essential to be able to give the most forcible and powerful utterance or expression to our thoughts. Our mints might go on to all

eternity issuing the brightest and most beautiful coins that can be produced from the die; but what would they be worth if never put into circulation? Thoughts, to be of any service or value to the world, must be transmitted to the world; and this faculty of most successfully imparting our thoughts or the thoughts of others, we conceive to be the very highest attainment in an ordinary complete education. It is true that

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air,"

and it is equally true that many and many a boy and girl of excellent ability has failed to ever attain distinction in the world by the failure on the part of his or her instructors, to insist on the proper expression of thought. This gives us a glimpse of something that is not just right in our present educational system; a very serious defect in what is, in other respects, so admirable and excellent, and, not only our common district schools, but even some of those of our cities-yes, many of them, are suffering from the want of that attention which this matter deserves.

The

We surely do not need, at this day and ago of the world, to enter into a lengthy discussion to insist upon the importance of the study and practice of elocution and vocal culture. full and crowded houses that our fine readers everywhere, nightly, command is, in itself, a conclusive and unanswerable argument. It cannot fail to convince us of the very high esti mate that public opinion places upon the value of good reeding. We shall simply confine our attention, then, to some sug gestions that will, perhaps, be of service to those who have had less experience in teaching, and fewer opportunities for studying and practicing this art. The whole science of elocution is based upon the mode of utterance of anything spoken; and when we remember that man's influence over his fellow-men is

most wonderfully proportioned to the tones of his voice, the expression of his countenance, physical development and general bearing, all of which may be included in one expression, namely, his manner of communicating his thoughts, we may realize, in some measure, what a claim this study has upon the attention of every teacher. The ancients regarded the skilled and powerful orator as far more capable of moving and influencing the great mass of the people than even the most powerful warrior. We have sometimes thought that the power of interpreting and effectually expressing the beautiful and noble thoughts of many of our writers, is even greater than to have originated those thoughts without the power of appropriate expression. We are, doubtless, all well acquainted with men and women who are little less than "walking cyclopædias;" whose education has been most liberal, and whose knowledge, both in science and literature, is deep and profound, yet whose faculties for imparting what they know have never been developed, and who are, therefore, almost entirely without the ability to turn their resources of knowledge to account, or to make their powerful minds felt by others.

Of how many public speakers will the same remark prove true, and how inexcusable is the negligence which suffers the most important truths to seem uninteresting and dull through mere sluggishness of delivery! How unworthy of one who performs the high function of a religious instructor (upon whom depends, in a great measure, the religious knowledge and devotional sentiment of so many), to imagine that he can worthily discharge this great mission by occasionally talking for an hour in a manner which he has taken no pains to render correct and attractive, and which, simply through the want of that command over himself which study and practice would give, renders the ideas uttered ineffectual and powerless! It has been said of a great preacher that, "truths divine come mended from

his tongue."

Alas! from how many do they come weakened and worthless! and we may apply the same thought to the promulgator and defender of truth everywhere on the rostrum, at the bar, pleading for right and justice, and in the schoolroom, developing and moulding characters, already stamped with the divine impress.

The appreciation of the truly beautiful in elocution we shall term the "æsthetic view" of the subject-the view that is com monly lost sight of. The science of the beautiful or "æsthetic," in general, consists in a fine perception of the conformity of things deemed beautiful, with those ideas of reason that correspond with them; while art, considered with reference to beauty, is the embodiment of these ideas in external forms, so as to make them clearly perceptible to others; and as both these ideas are embodied in our subject, the elocutionist is not only a scientist, but also an artist as well.

Now, as elocution consists of the outward expression of thoughts and emotions, by means of articulated and modulated speech, aided by gesture or physical action, and as the beautiful in elocution consists of the conformity of this outward manifestation with the inward thoughts and emotions, it follows that elocutionary science comprises chiefly a perception or appreciation; first, of the relation which exists between thought and emotion; and, secondly, of the relations between these and language. Further, it follows that the elocutionary art is nothing more nor less than the ability to adapt the external language (speech and gesture) to the inward thoughts and emotions, in strict conformity with these relations. To give a boy or girl a full and comprehensive view of this phase of the subject is to combine with his common school education that which will not fail, in coming years, to yield him or her the purest and highest gratification and delight.

Another result of a proper teaching of this science is, that