Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

Be careful, however, that it be made. to have some connection, however slight, with the subject-matter. Another way is to make some topical allusion with a little gratuitous flattery thrown in. Americans are much given to flattery, and, although we may know that it is not sincere, we like it just the same. Never begin a speech with a positive assertion. Rather place yourself in a position of deference toward your audience.

Give your auditors the impression that you have great consideration for their opinions. Let your introduction be conciliatory. Lead up to your subject. Talk about it without making dogmatic conclusions.

Having thus cleared the way, you are now ready to begin the discussion of the subject itself. Be careful, however, in changing from the introduction to the discussion that the point of transition is not perceptible to the audience. Let each part blend into the other, so that the hearer can not tell where the first part ended and the second began. The manner in which you treat the body of your discourse will vary with the nature of the topic, and it would be impossible for me to suggest any form that would be equally applicable to all. It would be presumptuous for anyone to say that there are certain inviolable methods that must be used in preparing a speech. Genius knows no bounds, and an original and thinking mind will often overleap all barriers and attain its end in direct violation of all conventional forms and rules. Rules and principles, however, are often of great assistance, especially to the beginner, who has not yet acquired full possession of his powers. In attempting to tell you what to do, I should like also to tell you how to do it, and give you brief extracts as examples, but the limits of this article will not permit.

First of all, in addressing an audi

[ocr errors]

ence your object is either to convince or to persuade. To convince, you appeal to the intellect; to persuade, you appeal to the imagination and the feelings. Inasmuch as the great mass of people are more imaginative and emotional than intellectual, and as it is easier to reach the heart than the reason, the latter method is more generally used by all great popular orators. However, do not depend entirely upon persuasion; you must have an argument, but do not appear to argue. The public does not like an argument when it can not take part in it. You must have a clear conception of the end for which you strive, and of the methods you use; but your skill will be shown in concealing this from your audience, and by compelling them finally to think as you think without making them conscious of how you have done it. Remember, however, that conviction is not always produced by the most logical and minute reasoning. So do not make your speech so argumentative that it becomes monotonous. Although aiming to instruct, you must still entertain. Relate an anecdote occasionally. It will amuse and relieve the mental effort of your intellectual listeners, and to others who can not follow the line of your argument it will also serve as a means of conviction. They will presume that because the proposition which you are attempting to prove was true in the special case related in your anecdote, it must be so in general. Quote occasionally from some famous author or orator. An audience imagines that because a famous man said such and such a thing, it must be true; while, in nine cases out of ten, it is no more so than if it had originated with you.

Variety is the soul of a speech. Be eloquent at times, when you can do so with appropriateness, but do not keep it up. Stay on the earth. Talk to the people as human beings, and

[ocr errors]

A

not as archangels or deities. flowery discourse is offensive to good taste, just as too much perfume is nauseating. Poetry can be used occasionally with good effect when you appeal to the feelings. In plain description or simple narrative it is also effective to use pictorial language, so that the real can be idealized and made more beautiful and impressive. Appeal to the imagination by word-pictures. For instance, if you are speaking against the saloon, take your audience into some dark alley, to some drunkard's home. Show the misery and squalor of that home, the empty cupboard, the bare floor, the naked, half-starved children, the mother on a sick-bed, the curses and blows of the drunken father, etc. Make it as dark and terrible as you possibly can. Paint it in red and black. Then turn to the home where the maddening demon, rum, has never entered. Show the peace, the comfort, the quiet, of that cheerful fireside; the happy children, eager to meet and kiss their papa as he comes home at night; the the well-filled table; the merry songs; the pleasant evening games; the warmth, cheer, pleasure, health, and happiness. Make this picture as bright as you possibly can. Paint it in white and gold. Now, leave the two scenes and make your appeal. Make it earnest. Mean what you say. Speak from the heart. "Out of the fulness of the heart the

mouth speaketh." Let out a tirade of denunciation against the saloon, the public apathy, the legislature and the legislators that make the existence of the traffic possible. Paint

your pictures in glowing colors, so that the darkness of the one will make the brightness of the other more conspicuous.

Now, by a mixture of argument, anecdote, narrative, anecdote, narrative, illustrations, poetry, quotations, jest, earnestness, colloquialism, and eloquence, having made the middle or substance of your speech, come to the conclusion, which should not only be a general summing up of all your argument, but should also be especially directed to the purpose for which you are striving, the moral which you wish to teach, or the acceptance of your special principles, and to move the audience to act in accordance with them. Reserve your grandest thought and strongest language for the conclusion. Make each successive statement stronger than the one preceding. Let your thoughts and words grow in power and in brilliancy. Then, with grand peroration soar into your highest flight of eloquence. Use burning words and brilliant colors. ments. ings. ings. Appeal to anything. Pull out all the stops, press on the swell, play forte, pump hard on the bellows, and end with a bang.

Appeal to the moral sentiAppeal to the human feelAppeal to the patriotic feel

[blocks in formation]

WHY

Vocal Music in the Public Schools.

BY GEORGE E. NICHOLS.

HY it should be taught.—(1) Because it touches the child on the ethical side of his nature. There is no art which appeals so strongly to the emotions as music. Patriotic songs arouse the listener to deeds of valor and to feelings of patriotism. Religious song stirs the soul to devotional feeling and is productive of worship, hence its use in the churches. The tenderer emotions are aroused by such song as is written to lyric words and the whole nature made purer and better. Nothing appeals so much to the nobler elements in a man's character as the grand music of the oratorios, the religious music of the masters, the stirring strains of the operas, and, in a much less degree, the familiar hymns of the fireside. (2) Music helps much in the way of discipline in the public schools. It has been said by noted educators that it is easy to tell whether music is taught in the schools if the deportment of the children is carefully watched. Horace Mann used to say: "When your children are tired or nervous, do not scold them, but sing to them." The mother sings to the child in his cradle, crooning him to sleep. The teacher sings to the children in the primary grades, and has them sing, in order that the hour may be brighter and the exercises enlivened by such a pleasing feature. As a recreation purely, it adds very much in the discipline. As gymnastics break the monotony of the school-period, so music comes in to brighten the dulness which often surrounds the ordinary work of the schoolroom. (3) Music has its value from a purely business side. It is an accomplishment for one to

sing at all. It is a great accomplishment for one to be able to read mu. sic readily at sight, and to sing with good expression. Many children who could never have the benefit of private tuition, receive such training in the public schools as to start them in the way of earning a living. It is a fact that in Boston and in other large cities, the choirs draw their voices from the public schools. The Handel and Haydn Society, the Boylston Club, the Apollo Club, and many other private musical organizations in Boston, recruit their numbers very largely from the ranks of the public schools. Surely a subject which touches the public generally on so many sides should have its place in the school-curriculum.

How it should be taught.-Music is more analogous to language than to any other study in the school-curriculum. It should, then, be taught like a language, and the method underlying the teaching of this subject applies to music. applies to music. The first steps in music should be taken entirely by rote. By rote, we mean imitation after a good model. For rote-work in music there is the best educational authority, and it is certainly a sound educational basis upon which the theory may rest. It is agreed by eminent psychologists that the faculties of the mind are opened, first, through sense-perception; second, through sense-conception; third, through the imagination; and fourth, reason. In the first stages of teaching any subject, then, the senses of the child are to be awakened so that he may through them perceive what he is to be taught. In the teaching of language, the mother accustoms the child to associate words with fa

miliar objects, until she builds into his mind a vocabulary. This she does entirely through his senses. After she has built into his mind a sufficient vocabulary, by means of qualifying words and simple action words, she teaches him to express his conception of things that he has perceived in correct forms. Later there comes the rule and compass of language, which is technical grammar, and afterward rhetoric and logic, which are the higher forms.

So the teacher, when the child first comes to school, introduces him to the object which is to be taught, viz., music. She proceeds, by giving him correct forms by rote or imitation, to build into his mind a musical vocabulary, and later in his course he is taught to recognize in written form what he has been taught orally. Pure rote-work should be continued for the first six months of the child's course in the public schools. The scale itself is taught by imitation, the teacher giving the model in sound for the children to imitate. She sings one, two, two, one, the children imitating her; one, two, three, three, two, one, and so on through the scale, the children. following her as nearly as they know how, until the intervals of the scale are worked thoroughly into the minds of the children. Not until the reasoning faculties are awakened, should the children be thrown upon their own resources. The author of the National Course has thought that about the third or the fourth year of school-life is a time when children may take music entirely at sight, for now the reasoning faculties are awakened, and they are able to think and to judge concerning the

Το

mathematical things of music. reverse this order, and attempt to make children reason in the very first steps, is to violate the fundamental principles of all good teaching, and it should never be attempted.

Dr. Marx, the celebrated author and educator, writes in relation to rote singing: "Genuine rote-singing implants at the beginning true musical impressions. It leads to a discrimination between a musical and an unmusical style. A child will learn more easily, and enjoy better singing in a good than a bad style, if he has right examples at the start; and it is obvious that where he receives the true idea at the very beginning, he is more likely to persevere from the love of it." Matthew Arnold, Locke, Froebel, and Pestalozzi, all have recognized the value of imitation work, and have given it their sanction.

What kind should be taught.— Manifestly the best. We owe it to the children in the public schools to give them the very best material to be obtained for their study. Children should not be confined much or often to one man's composition. The aim of the public schools at the present time seems to be to give such a course in literature as will acquaint the pupils with the style of the best writers and with literature in the broad acceptation of the term. in music the best authors should be studied. In the Mason Course, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Beethoven, and other great composers have been drawn upon for compositions suited to the needs of the public schools, and for this reason the course commends itself to educators everywhere as most admirable.

So

H

Obscurity in Vocal Writing.

BY FLOYD S. MUCKEY, M.D.

UXLEY defines science as "or

ganized common sense." Prof. Remsen declares its purpose to be "to drive out superstition and check the habit of forming opinions without sufficient knowledge of facts; a study of science teaches a definiteness of speech and less ambiguity." Our friends, the vocal teachers, seem to have the idea that scientific theories and actual practical work are incompatible. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What is scientific work if it is not practical work; and of what use is science if it can not be utilized in everyday life and work?

Let us see how the writings of teachers of the science of voice correspond to the ideas put forth by these men as to what true science is. Take, for example, Mr. Myer's definition of correct voice-production: "All correct voice-production is the result of flexible, pliable, bodily movement, and automatic, spontaneous form and adjustment of the parts at and above the organ of sound." This is certainly a flexible and pliable definition, for it might mean the "flexible, pliable movement" of any part of the body from the big toe to the scalp. Mr. Myer tells us in another place that "we sing through the throat, not with the throat," so that we are all at sea as to the location of the organ of sound, and we are again in the dark as to where this "automatic, spontaneous adjustment of parts" takes place. Mr. Myer might just as well talk of "carts and horses," the weather, or anything else, as to give us such indefinite definitions as this. They are definitions which do not define. It is just this lack of definiteness in instruction which ruins voices. It was in my

"efforts" to put in practice these "will o' the wisp "instructions and definitions which ruined my own voice which does not seem to please Mr. Myer. It was my desire to save others from the disappointment and despair occasioned by the loss of a good singing-voice that led me into this investigation, and not the idea of "foisting a machine upon the public." Mr. Myer tells us that "the science of voice is one thing, the art of singing a very different thing." Does Mr. Myer wish to go on record as saying that the science of voiceproduction has nothing to do with the art of song? What would the art of song be with the voice left out? Most people will admit, I think, that correct voice-production is the foundation of the art of singing. We think that the laryngoscope and photography can be made valuable aids to voice-production, and in this way be of service to the art of song. His claim that the science of voice is not included in the art of singing is absurd, and shows that he is simply trying to dodge the point at issue.

Mr. Myer feels badly because I Isaid that the resonance-cavities had nothing to do with the pitch of the voice. I say so again, and the reason why they have not is because the pitch of the voice is determined entirely by the vocal cords. Just the same as the pitch of a violin tone is determined by the string. The resonance-cavities have no more to do with the pitch of the voice than the sounding-board of the piano or the violin has to do with the pitch of the tone produced by them. If Mr. Myer thinks to the contrary, why does he not give us some good reason for his faith.

« PredošláPokračovať »