Chapter 2
It has been the author’s professional duty as well as his pleasure to listen to and criticize approximately six thousand speeches a year each season since 1912. These were made, not by college students, but by mature business and professional men. If that experience has engraved on his mind any one thing more deeply than another, surely it is this: the urgent necessity of preparing a talk before one starts to make it and of having something clear and definite to say, something that has impressed one, something that won’t stay unsaid. Aren’t you unconsciously drawn to the speaker who, you feel, has a real message in his head and heart that he zealously desires to communicate to your head and heart? That is half the secret of speaking.
When a speaker is in that kind of mental and emotional state he will discover a significant fact: namely, that his talk will almost make itself. Its yoke will be easy, its burden will be light. A well-prepared speech is already nine-tenths delivered.
The primary reason why most people want this training, as was recorded in Chapter I, is to acquire confidence and courage and self-reliance. And the one fatal mistake many make is neglecting to prepare their talks. How can they even hope to subdue the cohorts of fear, the cavalry of nervousness, when they go into the battle with wet powder and blank shells, or with no ammunition at all? Under the circumstances, small wonder that they are not exactly at horne before an audience. “I believe,” said Lincoln in the White House, “that I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to say.”
If you want confidence, why not do the things necessary to bring it about? “Perfect love,” wrote the Apostle John, “casteth out fear.” So does perfect preparation. Webster said he would as soon think of appearing before an audience half-clothed as half-prepared.
Why don’t we prepare our talks more carefully? Why? Some don’t clearly understand what preparation is nor how to go about it wisely; others plead a lack of time. So we shall discuss these problems rather fully in this chapter.
The Right Way to Prepare
What is preparation? Reading a book? That is one kind, but not the best. Reading may help; but if one attempts to lift a lot of “canned” thoughts out of a book and to give them out immediately as his own, the whole performance will be lacking in something. The audience may not know precisely what is lacking, but they will not warm to the speaker.
To illustrate: some time ago, the writer conducted a course in public speaking for the senior officers of New York City banks. Naturally, the members of such a group, having many demands upon their time, frequently found it difficult to prepare adequately, or to do what they conceived of as preparing. All their lives they had been thinking their own individual thoughts, nurturing their own personal convictions, seeing things from their own distinctive angles, living their own original experiences. So, in that fashion, they had spent forty years storing up material for speeches. But it was hard for some of them to realize that. They could not see the forest for “the murmuring pines and the hemlocks.”
This group met Friday evenings from five to seven. One Friday, a certain gentleman connected with an uptown bank—for our purposes we shall designate him as Mr. Jackson—found four-thirty had arrived, and, what was he to talk about? He walked out of his office, bought a copy of Forbes’ Magazine at a news stand and, in the subway coming down to the Federal Reserve Bank where the class met, he read an article entitled, “You Have Only Ten Years to Succeed.” He read it, not because he was interested in the article especially; but because he must speak on something, on anything, to fill his quota of time.
An hour later, he stood up and attempted to talk convincingly and interestingly on the contents of this article.
What was the result, die inevitable result?
He had not digested, had not assimilated what he was trying to say. “Trying to say’’—that expresses it precisely. He was trying. There was no real message in him seeking for an outlet; and his whole manner and tone revealed it unmistakably. How could he expect the audience to be any more impressed than he himself was? He kept referring to the article, saying the author said so and so. There was a surfeit of Forbes’ Magazine in it: but regrettably little of Mr. Jackson.
So the writer addressed him somewhat in this fashion: “Mr. Jackson, we are not interested in this shadowy personality who wrote that article. He is not here. We can’t see him. But we are interested in you and your ideas. Tell us what you think, personally, not what somebody else said. Put more of Mr. Jackson in this. Why not take this same subject for next week? Why not read this article again, and ask yourself whether you agree with the author or not? If you do, think out his suggestions and illustrate them with observations from your own experience. If you don’t agree with him, say so and tell us why. Let this article be merely the starting point from which you launch your own speech.”
Mr. Jackson accepted the suggestion, reread the article and concluded that he did not agree with the author at all. He did not sit down in the subway and try to prepare this next speech to order. He let it grow. It was a child of his own brain; and it developed and expanded and took on stature just as his physical children had done. And like his daughters, this other child grew day and night when he was least conscious of it. One thought was suggested to him while reading some item in the newspaper; another illustration swam into his mind unexpectedly when he was discussing the subject with a friend. The thing deepened and heightened, lengthened and thickened as he thought over it during the odd moments of the week.
The next time Mr. Jackson spoke on this subject, he had something that was his, ore that he dug out of his own mine, currency coined in his own mint. And he spoke all the better because he was disagreeing with the author of the article. There is no spur to rouse one like a little opposition.
What an incredible contrast between these two speeches by the same man, in the same fortnight, on the same subject. What a colossal difference the right kind of preparation makes!
Let us cite another illustration of how to do it and how not to do it. A gentleman, whom we shall call Mr. Flynn, was a student of public speaking in Washington, D.C. One afternoon he devoted his talk to eulogizing the capital city of the nation. He had hastily and superficially gleaned his facts from a booster booklet issued by a newspaper. They sounded like it—dry, disconnected, undigested. He had not thought over his subject adequately. It had not elicited his enthusiasm. He did not feel what he was saying deeply enough to make it worth while expressing. The whole affair was flat and flavourless and unprofitable.
A Speech That Could Not Fail
A fortnight later, something happened that touched Mr. Flynn to the core: a thief stole his car out of a public garage. He rushed to the police and offered rewards, but it was all in vain. The police admitted that it was well nigh impossible for them to cope with the crime situation; yet, only a week previously, they had found time to walk about the street, chalk in hand, and fine Mr. Flynn because he had parked his car fifteen minutes overtime. These “chalk cops, who were so busy that they could not catch criminals, aroused his ire. He was indignant. He had something now to say, not something that he had gotten out of a booklet issued by the newspaper, but something that was leaping hot out of his own life and experience. Here was something that was part and parcel of the real man—something that had aroused his feelings and convictions. In his speech eulogizing the city of Washington, he had laboriously pulled out sentence by sentence; but now he had but to stand on his feet and open his mouth, and his condemnation of the police welled up and boiled forth like Vesuvius in action. A speech like that is almost foolproof. It can hardly fail. It was experience plus reflection.
What Preparation Really Is
Does the preparation of a speech mean the getting together of some faultless phrases written down or memorized? No. Does it mean the assembling of a few casual thoughts that really convey very little to you personally? Not at all. It means tie assembling of your thoughts, your ideas, your convictions, your urges. And you have such thoughts, such urges every. You have them everyday of your waking life. They even swarm through your dreams. Your whole existence has been filled with feelings and experiences. These things are lying deep in your subconscious mind as thick as pebbles on the seashore. Preparation means thinking, brooding, recalling, selecting the ones that appeal to you most, polishing them, working them into a pattern, a mosaic of your own. That doesn’t sound like such a difficult program, does it? It isn’t. Just requires a little concentration and thinking to a purpose.
How did Dwight L. Moody prepare those addresses of his which made spiritual history? “I have no secret,” he replied in answer to that question.
When I choose a subject I write the name of it on the outside of a large envelope. I have many such envelopes. If, when I am reading, I meet a good thing on any subject I am to speak on, I slip it into the right envelope, and let it lie there. I always carry a notebook, and if I hear anything in a sermon that will throw light on that subject, I put it down, and slip it into the envelope. Perhaps I let it lie there for a year or more. When I want a new sermon, I take everything that has been accumulating. Between what I find there and the results of my own study, I have material enough. Then, all the time I am going over my sermons, telling out a little here, adding a little there. In that way they never get old.
The Sage Advice of Dean Brown of Yale
When the Yale Divinity School celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its founding, the Dean, Dr. Charles Reynolds Brown, delivered a series of lectures on the Art of Preaching. These were published in book form under that name by the Macmillan Company, New York. Dr. Brown had been preparing addresses himself weekly for a third of a century, and also training others to prepare and deliver; so he was in a position to dispense some sage advice on the subject, advice that will hold good regardless of whether the speaker is a man of the cloth preparing a discourse on the Ninety-first Psalm, or a shoe manufacturer preparing a speech on Labor Unions. So I am taking the liberty of quoting Dr. Brown here:
Brood over your text and your topic. Brood over them until they become mellow and responsive. You will hatch out of them a whole flock of promising ideas as you cause the tiny germs of life there contained to expand and develop…
It will be all the better if this process can go on for a long time and not be postponed until Saturday forenoon when you are actually making your final preparation for next Sunday. If a minister can hold a certain truth in his mind for a month, for six months perhaps, for a year it may be, before he preaches on it he will find new ideas perpetually sprouting out of it, until it shows an abundant growth. He may meditate on it as he walks the streets, or as he spends some hours on a train, when his eyes are too tired to read.
He may indeed brood upon it in the night-time. It is better for the minister not to take his church or his sermon to bed with him habitually—a pulpit is a splendid thing to preach from, but it is not a good bed-fellow. Yet, for all that, I have sometimes gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to put down the thoughts which came to me, for fear l might forget them before morning…
When you are actually engaged in assembling the material for a particular sermon, write down everything that comes to you bearing upon that text and topic. Write down what you saw in the text when you first chose it. Write down all the associated ideas which now occur to you…
Put all these ideas of yours down in writing, just a few words, enough to fix the idea, and keep your mind reaching for more all the time as if it were never to see an other book as long as it lived. This is the way to train the mind in productiveness. You will by this method keep your own mental processes fresh, original, creative…
Put down all of those ideas which you have brought to the birth yourself, unaided. They are more precious for your mental unfolding than rubies and diamonds and much fine gold. Put them down, preferably on scraps of paper, backs of old letters, fragments of envelopes, waste paper, anything which comes to your hand. This is much better every way than to use nice, long, clean sheets of foolscap. It is not a mere matter of economy–you will find it easier to arrange and organize those loose bits when you come to set your material in order.
Keep on putting down all the ideas which come to your mind, thinking hard all the while. You need not hurry this process. It is one of the most important mental trans actions in which you will be privileged to engage. It is this method which causes the mind to grow in real productive power…
You will find that the sermons you enjoy preaching the most and the ones which actually accomplish the most good in the lives of your people will be those sermons which you take most largely out of your own interiors. They are bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, the children of your own mental labor, the output of your own creative energy. The sermons which are garbled and compiled will always have a kind of second-hand, warmed–over flavor about them. The sermons which live and move and enter into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God, the sermons which enter into the hearts of men causing them to mount up with wings like eagles and to walk in the way of duty and not faint—these real sermons are the ones which are actually born from the vital energies of the man who utters them.
How Lincoln Prepared His Speeches
How did Lincoln prepare his speeches? Fortunately, we know the facts; and, as you read here of his method, you will observe that Dean Brown, in his lecture, commended several of the procedures that Lincoln had employed three-quarters of a century previously. One of Lincoln’s most famous addresses was that in which he declared with prophetic vision: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.” This speech was thought out as he went about his usual work, as he ate his meals, as he walked the street, as he sat in his bam milking his cow, as he made his daily trip to the butcher shop and grocery, an old gray shawl over his shoulders, his market basket over his arm, his little son at his side, chattering and questioning, growing peeved, and jerking at the long bony fingers in a vain effort to make his father talk to him. But Lincoln stalked on, absorbed in his own reflections, thinking of his speech, apparently unconscious of the boy’s existence.
From time to time during this brooding and hatching process, he jotted down notes, fragments, sentences here and there on stray envelopes, scraps of paper, bits torn from paper sacks—anything that was near. These he stowed away in the top of his hat and carried them there until he was ready to sit down and arrange them in order, and to write and revise the whole thing, and to shape it up for delivery and publication.
In the joint debates of 1858, Senator Douglas delivered the same speech wherever he went; but Lincoln kept studying and contemplating and reflecting until he found it easier, he said, to make a new speech each day than to repeat an old one. The subject was forever widening and enlarging in his mind.
A short time before he moved into the White House, he took a copy of the Constitution and three speeches, and with only these for reference, he locked himself in a dingy, dusty back room over a store in Springfield; and there, away from all intrusion and interruption, he wrote out his inaugural address.
How did Lincoln prepare his Gettysburg address? Unfortunately, false reports have been circulated about it. The true story, however, is fascinating. Let us have it:
When the commission in charge of the Gettysburg cemetery decided to arrange for a formal dedication, they invited Edward Everett to deliver the speech. He had been a Boston minister, president of Harvard, governor of Massachusetts, United States senator, minister to England, secretary of state, and was generally considered to be America’s most capable speaker. The date first set for the dedication ceremonies was October 23, 1863. Mr. Everett very wisely declared that it would be impossible for him to prepare adequately on such short notice. So the dedication was postponed until November 19, nearly a month, to give him time to prepare. The last three days of that period he spent in Gettysburg, going over the battlefield, familiarizing himself with all that had taken place there. That period of brooding and thinking was most excellent preparation. It made the battle real to him.
Invitations to be present were despatched to all the members of Congress, to the President and his cabinet. Most of these declined; the committee was surprised when Lincoln agreed to come. Should they ask him to speak? They had not intended to do so. Objections were raised. He would not have time to prepare. Besides, even if he did have time, had he the ability? True, he could handle himself well in a debate on slavery or in a Cooper Union address; but no one had ever heard him deliver a dedicatory address. This was a grave and solemn occasion. They ought not to take any· chances. Should they ask him to speak? They wondered, wondered… But they would have wondered a thousand times more had they been able to look into the future and to see that this man, whose ability they were questioning, was to deliver on that occasion what is very generally accepted now as one of the most enduring addresses ever delivered by the lips of mortal man.
Finally, a fortnight before the event, they sent Lincoln a belated invitation to make “a few appropriate remarks.” Yes, that is the way they worded it: “a few appropriate remarks.’’ Think of writing that to the President of the United States!
Lincoln immediately set about preparing. He wrote to Edward Everett, secured a copy of the address that that classic scholar was to deliver, and, a day or two later, going to a photographer’s gallery to pose for his photograph, took Everett’s manuscript with him and read it during the spare time that he had at the studio. He thought over his talk for days, thought over it while walking back and forth between the White House and the war office, thought over it while stretched out on a leather couch in the war office waiting for the late telegraphic reports. He wrote a rough draft of it on a piece of foolscap paper, and carried it about in the top of his tall silk hat. Ceaselessly he was brooding over it, ceaselessly it was taking shape. The Sunday before it was delivered he said to Noah Brooks: “It is not exactly written. It is not finished anyway. I have written it over two or three times, and I shall have to give it another lick before I am satisfied.”
He arrived in Gettysburg the night before the dedication. The little town was filled to overflowing. lts usual population of thirteen hundred had been suddenly swelled to fifteen thousand. The sidewalks became clogged, impassable; men and women took to the dirt streets. Half a dozen bands were playing; crowds were singing “John Brown’s Body.” People fore-gathered before the home of Mr. Wills where Lincoln was being entertained. They serenaded him; they demanded a speech. Lincoln responded with a few words which conveyed with more clearness than tact, perhaps, that he was unwilling to speak until the morrow. The facts are that he was spending the latter part of that evening giving his speech “another lick.” He even went to an adjoining house where Secretary Seward was staying and read the speech aloud to him for his criticism. After breakfast the next morning, he continued “to give it another lick,” working on it until a rap came at the door informing him that it was time for him to take his place in the procession. “Colonel Carr, who rode just behind the President, stated that when the procession started, the President sat erect on his horse, and looked the part of the commander-in-chief of the army; but, as the procession moved on, his body leaned forward, his arms hung limp, and his head was bowed. He seemed absorbed in thought.”
We can only guess that even then he was going over his little speech of ten immortal sentences, giving it “another lick.”
Some of Lincoln’s speeches, in which he had only a superficial interest, were unquestioned failures; but he was possessed of extraordinary power when he spoke of slavery and the union. Why? Because he thought ceaselessly on these problems and felt deeply. A companion who shared a room with him one night in an Illinois tavern awoke next morning at daylight to find Lincoln sitting up in bed, staring at the wall, and his first words were: “This government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.”
How did Christ prepare his addresses? He withdrew from the crowd. He thought. He brooded. He pondered. He went out alone into the wilderness and meditated and fasted for forty days and forty nights. “From that time on,” records Saint Matthew, “Jesus began to preach.” Shortly after that, he delivered one of the world’s most celebrated speeches: the Sermon on the Mount.
“That is all very interesting,” you may protest; “but I have no desire to become an immortal orator. I merely want to make a few simple talks occasionally.”
True, and we realize your wants fully. This book is for the specific purpose of helping you and others like you to do just that. But, unpretending as the talks of yours may prove to be, you can profit by and utilize in some measure the methods of the famous speakers of the past.
How to Prepare Your Talk
What topics ought you to speak on for practice? Anything that interests you. Don’t make the almost universal mistake of trying to cover too much ground in a brief talk. Just take one or two angles of a subject and attempt to cover them adequately. You will be fortunate if you can do that in a short speech.
Determine your subject in advance, so that you will have time to think it over in odd moments. Think over it for seven days; dream over it for seven nights. Think of it the last thing when you retire. Think of it the next morning while you are shaving, while you are bathing, while you are riding down town, while you are waiting for elevators, for lunch, for appointments, while you are ironing or cooking dinner. Discuss it with your friends. Make it a topic of conversation.
Ask yourself all possible questions concerning it. If, for example, you are to speak on divorce, ask yourself what causes divorce, what are the effects economically, socially. How can the evil be remedied? Should we have uniform divorce laws? Why? Or should we have any divorce laws? Should divorce be made impossible? More difficult? Easier?
Suppose you were going to talk on why you are studying speech. You ought then to ask yourself such questions as these: What are my troubles? What do I hope to get out of this? Have I ever made a public talk? If so, when? Where? What happened? Why do I think this training is valuable for a business man? Do I know men and women who are forging ahead commercially or in politics largely because of their self-confidence, their presence, their ability to talk convincingly? Do I know others who will probably never achieve a gratifying measure of success because they lack these positive assets? Be specific. Tell the stories of these people without mentioning their names.
If you stand up and think clearly and keep going for two or three minutes, that is all that can be expected of you during your first few talks. A topic such as why you are studying public speaking, is very easy; that is obvious. If you will spend a little time selecting and arranging your material on that topic, you will be almost sure to remember it, for you will be speaking of your own observations, your own desires, your own experiences.
On the other hand, let us suppose that you have decided to speak on your business or profession. How shall you set about preparing such a talk? You already have a wealth of material on that subject. Your problem, then, will be to select and arrange it. Do not attempt to tell us all about it in three minutes. It cant be done. The attempt will be too sketchy, too fragmentary. Take one and only one phase of your topic: expand and enlarge that. For example, why not tell how you came to be in your particular business or profession? Was it a result of accident or choice? Relate your early struggles, your defeats, your hopes, your triumphs. Give a human interest narrative, a real life picture based on first and experiences. The truthful, inside story of almost anyone’s life—if told modestly and without offending egotism—is most entertaining. It is almost sure-fire speech material.
Or take another angle of your business: what are its troubles? What advice would you give to a young person entering it?
Or tell about the people with whom you come in contact —the honest and dishonest ones. Tell of your problems. What has your work taught you about the most interesting topic in the world: human nature? If you speak about the technical side of your job, about things, your talk may very easily prove uninteresting to others. But people, personalities—one can hardly go wrong with that kind of material.
Above all else, don’t make your talk an abstract preachment. That will bore. Make your talk a regular layer cake of illustrations and general statements. Think of concrete cases you have observed, and of the fundamental truths which you believe those specific instances illustrate. You will also discover that these concrete cases are far easier to remember than abstractions; are far easier to talk about They will also aid and brighten your delivery.
Here is the way a very interesting writer does it. This is an excerpt from an article by B. A. Forbes on the necessity of executives’ delegating responsibilities to their associates. Note the illustrations—the gossip about people.
Many of our present-day gigantic enterprises were at one time one-man affairs. But most of them have out grown this status. The reason is that, while every great organization is ‘the lengthened shadow of one man,’ business and industry are now conducted on such a colossal scale that of necessity even the ablest giant must gather about him brainy associates to help in handling all the reins.
Woolworth once told me that his was essentially a one-man business for years. Then he ruined his health, and it was while he lay week after week in the hospital that he awakened to the fact that if his business was to expand as he hoped, he would have to share the managerial responsibilities.
Bethlehem Steel for a number of years was distinctly of the one-man type. Charles M. Schwab was the whole works. By and by Eugene G. Grace grew in stature and developed into an abler steel man than Schwab, according to the repeated declarations of the latter.
Eastman Kodak in its earlier stages consisted mainly of George Eastman, but he was wise enough to create an efficient organization long ago. All the greatest Chicago packing houses underwent a similar experience during the time of their founders. Standard Oil, contrary to the popular notion, never was a one-man organization after it grew to large dimensions.
J.P. Morgan, although a towering giant, was an ardent believer in choosing the most capable partners and sharing the burdens with them.
There are still ambitious business leaders who would like to run their business on the one-man principle, but, willy-nilly, they are forced by the very magnitude of modem operations to delegate responsibilities to others.
Some men, in speaking of their businesses, commit the unforgivable error of talking only of the features that interest them. Shouldn’t the speaker try to ascertain what will enterain not himself but his hearers? Shouldn’t he try to appeal their selfish interests? If, for example, he sells fire insurance, shouldn’t he tell them how to prevent fires on their own property? If he is a banker, shouldn’t he give them advice on finance or investments? If he the speaker is a national leader of a women’s organization, shouldn’t she teller local audience of the ways they are part of a national movement by citing specific examples from their local program?
While preparing, study your audience. Think of their rants, their wishes. That is sometimes half the battle.
In preparing some topics, it is very advisable to do some reading, to discover what others have thought, what others have said on the same subject. But don’t read until you have first thought yourself dry. That is important—very. Then go the public library and lay your needs before the librarian. Tell her you are preparing a speech on such and such a topic. Ask her frankly for help, if you are not in the habit of doing research work, you will probably be surprised at lie aids she can put at your disposal; perhaps a special volume on your very topic, outlines and briefs for debate, giving the principal arguments on both sides of the public questions of the day; the Reader’s Guide to Periodical. Literature listing the magazine articles that have appeared to various topics since The beginning of the century; In—formation Please Almanac, the World Almanac, the Encyclopedias, and dozens of reference books. They are tools in your workshop. Use them.
The Secret of Reserve Power
Luther Burbank said, shortly before his death: “l have often produced a million plant specimens to find but one or two superlatively good ones, and have then destroyer all the inferior specimens.” A speech ought to be prepare somewhat in that lavish and discriminating spirit. Assemble a hundred thoughts, and discard ninety.
Collect more material, more information, than there is any possibility of employing. Get it for the additional confidence it will give you, for the sureness of touch. Get it for the effect it will have on your mind and heart and whole manner of speaking. This is a basic, important factor of preparation; yet it is constantly ignored by speakers, botulin public and in private.
“I have drilled hundreds of salesmen and saleswomen, canvassers, and demonstrators,” says Arthur Dunn, “and the principal weakness which I have discovered in most oi them has been their failure to realize the importance of knowing everything possible about their products and getting such knowledge before they start to sell.
“Many salesmen have come to my office and after getting a description of the article and a line of sales talk have been eager to get right out and try to sell. Many of these salesmen have not lasted a week and a large number have not lasted forty-eight hours. In educating and drilling canvassers and salesmen in the sale of a food specialty, I have endeavoured to make food experts of them. I have compelled them to study food charts issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, which show in food the amount of water, the amount of protein, the amount of carbohydrates, the amount of fat, and ash. I have had them study the elements with make up the products which they are to sell. I have had them go to school for several days and then pass examinations. I have had them sell the product to other salesmen. I have offered prizes for the best sales talks.
“I have often found salesmen who get impatient at the preliminary time required for the study of their articles. They have said, ‘I will never have time to tell all of this to a retail grocer. He is too busy. If I talk protein and carbohydrates, he won’t listen and, if he does listen, he won’t know what I am talking about.’ My reply has been, ‘You don’t get all this knowledge for the benefit of your customer, but for the benefit of yourself. If you know your product from A to Z you will have a feeling about it that ls difficult to describe. You will be so positively charged, so fortified, so strengthened in your own mental attitude that you will be both irresistible and unconquerable.”
Miss Ida M. Tarbell, the well-known historian of the standard Oil Company, told the writer that years ago, when he was in Paris, Mr. S. S. McClure, the founder of Mclure’s Magazine, cabled her to write a short article about the Atlantic Cable. She went to London, interviewed he European manager of the principal cable, and obtained sufficient data for her assignment. But she did not stop here. She wanted a reserve supply of facts; so she studied til manner of cables on display in the British Museum; she end books on the history of the cable and even went to manufacturing concerns on the edge of London and saw cables in the process of construction.
Why did she collect ten times as much information as she could possibly use? She did it because she felt it would give ter reserve power; because she realized that the things she and did not express would lend force and color to the little she did express.
Edwin James Cattell has spoken to approximately thirty million people; yet he confided to me that if he did not, on he way home. kick himself for the good things he had left out of his talk he felt that the performance must have been failure. Why? Because he knew from long experience that he talks of distinct merit are those in which there abounds reserve of material, a plethora, a profusion of it far—more than the speaker has time to use.
Summary
- When a speaker has a real message in his head and heart—an inner urge to speak, he is almost sure to do himself credit. A well-prepared speech is already nine–tenths delivered.
- What is preparation? The setting down of some mechanical sentences on paper? The memorizing of phrases? Not at all. Real preparation consists in digging something out of yourself, in assembling and arranging your own thoughts, in cherishing and nurturing your own convictions. (Illustrations: Mr. Jackson of New York failed when he attempted merely to reiterate another man’s thoughts he had culled from an article in Forbes’ Magazine. He succeeded when he used that article merely as a starting point for his own speech—when he thought out his own ideas, developed his own illustrations.)
- Do not sit down and try to manufacture a speech in thirty minutes. A speech can’t be cooked to order like a steak. A speech must grow. Select your topic early in the week, think over it during odd moments, brood over it, sleep over it, dream over it. Discuss it with friends. Make it a topic of conversation. Ask yourself all possible questions concerning it. Put down on pieces of paper all thoughts and illustrations that come to you and keep reaching out for more. Ideas, suggestions, illustrations will come drifting to you at sundry times—when you are bathing, when you are driving downtown, when you are waiting for dinner to be served. That was Lincoln’s method. It has been the method of almost all successful speakers.
- After you have done a bit of independent thinking, go to the library and do some reading on your topic—if time permits. Tell the librarian your needs. She can render you great assistance.
- Collect far more material than you intend to use. Imitate Luther Burbank. He often produced a million plant specimens to find one or two superlatively good ones. Assemble a hundred thoughts; discard ninety.
- The way to develop reserve power is to know far more than you can use, to have a full reservoir of information. In preparing a speech, use the methods Arthur Dunn em played in training his salesmen to sell a breakfast food specialty, the methods that Ida Tarbell employed in pre paring her article on the Atlantic cable.
