emphasis to the force of an important passage. The usual fault of young
speakers is too much action. To emphasize all parts alike, is equivalent
to no emphasis; and by employing forcible gestures on unimportant
passages, we diminish our power to render other parts impressive.



ELOCUTION AND READING. (57)

The business of training youth in elocution, must be commenced in
childhood. The first school is the nursery. There, at least, may be formed
a distinct articulation, which is the first requisite for good speaking.
How rarely is it found in perfection among our orators.

"Words," says one, referring to articulation, should "be delivered out
from the lips, as beautiful coins, newly issued from the mint; deeply and
accurately impressed, perfectly finished; neatly struck by the proper
organs, distinct, in due succession, and of due weight." How rarely do we
hear a speaker whose tongue, teeth, and lips, do their office so perfectly
as to answer to this beautiful description! And the common faults in
articulation, it should be remembered, take their rise from the very
nursery.

Grace in eloquence, in the pulpit, at the bar, can not be separated from
grace in the ordinary manners, in private life, in the social circle, in
the family. It can not well be superinduced upon all the other
acquisitions of youth, any more than that nameless, but invaluable,
quality called good breeding. Begin, therefore, the work of forming the
orator with the child; not merely by teaching him to declaim, but what is
of more consequence, by observing and correcting his daily manners,