To
C.C.S.




PUBLIC SPEAKING

CHAPTER I

SPEECH


Importance of Speech. There never has been in the history of the world
a time when the spoken word has been equaled in value and importance
by any other means of communication. If one traces the development of
mankind from what he considers its earliest stage he will find that
the wandering family of savages depended entirely upon what its
members said to one another. A little later when a group of families
made a clan or tribe the individuals still heard the commands of the
leader, or in tribal council voiced their own opinions. The beginnings
of poetry show us the bard who recited to his audiences. Drama, in all
primitive societies a valuable spreader of knowledge, entertainment,
and religion, is entirely oral. In so late and well-organized
communities as the city republics of Greece all matters were discussed
in open assemblies of the rather small populations.

Every great epoch of the world's progress shows the supreme importance
of speech upon human action--individual and collective. In the Roman