present time, then, is not whether or not the subject shall have a
place. Some sort of place it always has had and always will have.
Present discussion should rather bear upon the policy and the method of
that instruction, the qualifications to be required of teachers, and
the consideration for themselves and their work that teachers have a
right to expect.

Naturally, public speaking in the form of debating has received favor
among educators. It seems to serve the ends of practice in speaking and
it gives also good mental discipline. The high regard for debating is
not misplaced. We can hardly overestimate the good that debating has
done to the subject of speaking in the schools and colleges. The rigid
intellectual discipline involved in debating has helped to establish
public speaking in the regular curriculum, thus gaining for it, and for
teachers in it, greater respect. To bring training in speech into close
relation with training in thought, and with the study of expression in
English, is most desirable. This, however, does _not_ mean that
training in speech, as a distinct object in itself, should be allowed
to fall into comparative neglect. It is quite possible that, along with
the healthy disapproval of false elocution and meaningless declamation,
may come an underestimation of the important place of a right kind and
a due degree of technical training in voice and general form.

In a recent book on public speaking, the statement is made that it is
all well enough, if it so happens, for a speaker to have a pleasing
voice, but it is not essential. This, though true in a sense, is
misleading, and much teaching of this sort would be unfortunate for
young speakers. It would seem quite unnecessary to say that beauty of
voice is not in itself a primary object in vocal training for public
speaking. The object is to make voices effective. In the effective use