easily distinguishable theme. Throughout these chapters the mind
of the student should be engaged with the motif of the selection
as it first catches the mind. Nothing in later study can make up
for the loss of the first glow, the undefined answering response
to the animating spirit of a writer's message. His differentiated
meanings, his elaborations of theme for the purpose of increased
force, intensity or suggestion are but useless lumber to a mind
that has not throbbed in sympathy, scarce knowing why. It is just
here that almost all teaching in both literature and its
expression fails; there is not enough browsing--knee-deep, waist-
deep,--for the pure joy of it.





CHAPTER II.

SMOOTHNESS.


At first, the student may find it difficult to concentrate the
minds of his hearers upon his theme steadily and continuously. His
ability to do this may come spasmodically. This irregular mental
activity reports itself in unevenness of delivery; life appears in
gleams not in steady shining. But with continued effort to
concentrate other minds upon his subject, this unevenness gives
place to ease in delivery, to smoothness of voice. Continuity of
thought impels smoothness of expression. When a thought is held
steadily in the mind of the pupil, together with a dominating