ence; reading alone tends to eliminate the process of progressive thinking; acting alone tends to develop staginess. As has been already shown, all work in Vocal Expression tends to artificiality and affectation, and to a lack of genuineness in thinking. The same is true of Rhetoric. The reason for this is the tendency of most minds to separate form from thought. The practice in different modes of expression tends to prevent this superficiality and one-sidedness, and to develop simplicity, genuineness and power. It gives greater discipline of the faculties, greater selfcontrol, and greater ability to vary and adapt as well as to employ all modes of expression.

Again, such a method prevents the tendency to mere imitation. If a student is made to read only, he will tend, possibly, to read like his teacher; but if he is made to speak on familiar subjects, his vocal modulations in conversation are so spontaneous, so freely natural, that he rarely imitates. By having him converse upon his feet to the class, and then read or recite, he can be made to feel when he is natural, and when unnatural. Thus the student, as well as the teacher, will be enabled to recognize his fundamental needs and difficulties.

Again, work in different forms of expression will develop originality. The student is not only enabled to study himself, not only prevented from imitation and made natural, but his faculties and powers are stimulated to act in their own way. Some of them will necessarily call for the expression of his own views and convictions.

The method for Vocal Expression here unfolded seeks to keep continually before the student the thought, and especially the process of its creation or realization, as well as modes of delivery. Such a method can be easily applied to speaking or to any form of Vocal Expression. It is notorious that mechanical elocution can only be applied to certain forms of recitation and to a certain kind of literature, and cannot be applied to extemporaneous speaking. This fact proves that such a method is inadequate,

and that the whole subject needs to be placed upon a different basis and lifted to a higher.

Every one of the steps which have been laid down applies to all of these modes of expression, and nearly every one of the problems may be illustrated by speaking, reading, recitation, and in fact by all the elemental acts of Vocal Expression.

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XLIL CONVERSATION.

THE question arises, with which of these several modes of

expression should work begin in the development of delivery?

A child learns to speak before it learns to recite or to write. Conversation is the first and fundamental mode by which one man reveals himself to another. It is also the simplest and most direct. It brings the mind into immediate contact with another mind. The speaker himself can realize the nature of the action of his own mind, and its relations to the modulations of his voice. Conversation also gives the teacher the best possible means of judging the mental, as well as the vocal action of his pupil. Hence, one of the first exercises which the teacher should use is conversation. Students should speak to the teacher and the class upon the simplest subjects. They should discuss, in the simplest possible way, those topics in which they are the most vitally interested.

An important means of developing the power of conversation is story-telling. Stories are the first form of literature that the child learns to love; and the very latest development of art uses stories as the highest means of embodying the conceptions of the imagination. Men rarely, if ever, outgrow their love for them. There must be something in them, therefore, of fundamental importance to the development of the human mind. A story that pleases a child is nearly always full of vivid pictures, and has a simple movement of events or scenes which awakens the association of ideas in the mind. A good story must be simple,

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real, without affectation or stiltedness; its sequence of ideas should move with genuine life. These are the very qualities that should characterize conversation.

The sources from which stories may be drawn, suited to the age and needs of a student or a class, are boundless. Folk-lore, personal experience, current literature, some particular phase of history or art, are among those which come at once to mind. One method is to assign poems, adapted to the needs and advancement of the student, and have the student give the argument or meaning in his own language. Such problems may be selected from poems as simple as Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn," or from those as difficult as the "Faery Queen," or "The Ring and the Book."

Poems may be selected to meet the needs of the student; for example, to a student who has no love for poetry, and who lacks imagination, can be given some beautiful poem the story of which he cannot help but like; his imagination may be thus quickened, and he be started in the right path to reach a higher plane of culture. Sometimes a student should be left to his own selection, that his tastes and tendencies may be observed and studied by the teacher.

There are many advantages in this use of stories. The student will be brought into contact with the greatest literary art. He will be enabled to feel the real characteristics of true expression in the best authors, their simplicity, ease, repose, and power. His literary taste will be stimulated, and he will unconsciously assimilate these qualities in his own execution. Again, he will have something to say, something a class will desire to hear, and he will be stirred to do his best.

Another advantage is to bring the work of expression into contact with literature. As a matter of fact, poetry and literature are the highest modes of expression, and in the development of all art a sense of a right standard can be best gained by contact with them. Besides, conversation may be made an impor.

tant aid in studying literature; not in a mechanical or analytic way, but in accordance with the principles of all true education; not on a basis of gaining information merely, but also power to execute. It obeys the principle that "to know any thing we must do it," — the principle which underlies all manual training and all reforms in education. Instead of being crammed with facts about a poem, the student will be enabled to enter directly into sympathy with its spirit. Literature must be studied by direct contact and assimilation. Whatever keeps us away from reading literature itself is bad. Whatever brings us into direct, sympathetic contact with the ideas of a literary work is good. Such a course, in short, develops that true literary appreciation which lies at the basis not only of all criticism, but of all artistic power and of all culture and development.

While story-telling is one of the simplest forms of expression, it is one of the most difficult. A good story-teller is rare. Carlyle says that this power is a sign of a great mind. Simplicity is always difficult, for it is the charm of the greatest art, and simplicity is the fundamental characteristic of a good story. Students should, therefore, often be led to study the great story-tellers, such as Chaucer, so as to learn from example the power of simple truth when told in the most direct way.

The preparation of a story should vary with each individual; but it should consist chiefly in deciding upon where to begin, and upon the fundamental points or purpose. A good story must be definite and concise. There will always be great temptation to wander, or to take up too much time. It is very important, therefore, that a student should be timed, that he may present just what is interesting, just what is important, and may begin to have the power of pre-conceiving his thought in form and of knowing the amount of time each part will take. All art must be founded upon just such foresight.

In the act of telling a story, all the powers of the mind must be active. Every true story is dramatic, and the imagination and

sympathy, as the two elements of the dramatic instinct, must especially be awake. There should be little theorizing about conversation; all should be as free and simple as possible. The student should not feel that he is getting up to make a speech, but that he is simply facing his class to speak of something in which he is interested. His heart must burn with his thought, and he must make them feel and see what he feels and sees, and awaken their interest in the poem so that they will themselves be led to read it.

It would be an invaluable discipline for parents or teachers from the earliest years to lead children to tell the stories about that which they are reading. If steps were taken to interest children in reading books, and in talking about them from early years, their education and culture would be more satisfactory.

Many hints have been thrown out as to the educational value of telling stories, and of discussions; but in general it may be said, that there is no step which has been shown, no problem which has been laid down in the last lessons, to which some form of speaking, conversation, or discussion cannot be applied.

XLIII EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING.

STUDENTS should be trained as early as possible to present

their thoughts and ideas upon their feet. All conversation, of course, is extemporaneous speaking. Conversation, however, is more free and simple than speaking; and while work should begin with the simple forms of conversation, it should be lifted as early as possible into systematic logical discussion.

What is meant by extemporaneous speaking? It does not mean speaking without preparation, without study or arrangement of ideas; the words only are impromptu. It means that free action of the mind in speaking in which the words and the form of presentation are more or less modified by the presence of an audience.