original discoveries in mathematics and languages while his careful class-mate is over conscious of his own defects. But there is nothing ,like per sistent practice to make the orator. "Per aspera ad astra perfection is made up of trifles we know. Demosthenes spouted Homer with pebbles in his mouth. Lord, Beaconsfield failed in his maiden effort before the house of commons and Henry Clay studied the art of elo cution incessantly. I knew a man in college whose appearance on the platform in his Freshman year always raised a laugh. He spent his first summer vacation in his grandfather's woods, furiously declaiming Webster and Hayne. Having no sentient hear• ers, he escaped with his life to return to college, where he carried off the highest honors of his class in oratory and composition. A good declaimer first of all, of course, must have a good articulation, an accomplishment en tirely attainable by cultivation and of which so much is said in text books that nothing need be added here. Second, as to the spirit of the piece ; instinct must tell where to put the emphasis and training how to put it. It must be remembered that the great accomplishment of a good speaker is in knowing how to change the pitch of his voice ; change of volume is nothing like so im-, pressive as change of tone. Next as to gestures; to a great many beginners the best rule is to follow the immortal advice of Punch to the young man about to get married. "Dont make too many gestures especially if they are feeble." I once heard Henry Ward Beecher preach an hour without making half a dozen. Imitative gestures are very common, but always out of place. Notice the next school boy whom you hear and see, if he does not refer to the North with a sweep of his right hand and follow it by indicating the South with his left. There may be no especial reason for reminding his audience of the rather well know fact that the North and South are at opposite points of the compass, but he sees a chance for a gesture and gets it in some- THE FREE LANCE. It is not well to make gestures just because there is a chance to, but when you have a glowing thought to give your hearers, then heave it at them, hand and heart, body and soul. A great speaker will sometimes makes a gesture more eloquent than words. In the Blaine cam paign of 1884 I heard or rather saw Emory S. Storres, the great Chicago lawyer, pause in his ad dress, make an indescribable prolonged tortous movement of his left hand which climbed up be hind his left ear and apparently couldn't get any farther, by which was pictured so pointedly the impotent vacillating policy of the Democratic party on every public question of the last twenty five years, that the audience come down in a roar of laughter and applause. 'Tis the plebe's first morning in chapel, and he hears the letter and spirit of his four year's office issued in true sense and sound. "lie that With ears to hoar, lot him hoar." Maximus Magistratus speaks : Right glad aro we to welcome you, our friends And patron branches of our common trunk, The stem of knowledge and of soli restraint,— Which bath its root in liner soil than earth, And shakes it branches (which are wo and you) In atmosphere more rare than earthly air. (TO BE CONTINUED.) MAURICE F. THOMPSON. THE PLEBE'S INSTALLATION. The soil which gives this virtuous tree its growth Is sober reason, all unwatered quite By sundry wishes or the strong desires Which claim their fountain in the fleshly heart. The atmosphere which gives the foliage health Must well have been the nostril breath of gods, And so be strained of all impurities Which blast the bloom of finer things, The genial warmth and sunny blood of youth Must needs be frozen into congealed ice With which to keep the temper savory, As ice keeps sweet the now killed venison. We welcome you to come here under us, And well we know that such la our best luck, For you arealways soft to sit upon. As we will sit on you to keep you warm, Or keep you down, or both, for, keeping you
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers