full, sonorous, and agreeable; and, secondly, the training of the voice in
those modifications which are used in the expressions of thought and
feeling, including all that variety of management which appears in the
delivery of a good speaker.

STRENGTH. To secure the requisite strength of voice should be our first aim
in a course of vocal culture. So important was this element of elocutionary
training considered by the Athenians, that they had a class of teachers who
were wholly devoted to it as a specialty. The zeal and perseverance of
Demosthenes in correcting the natural deficiencies of his voice, have
passed into a proverb. How he was accustomed to run up the steepest hills,
and to declaim on the sea-shore, when the waves were violently agitated, in
order to acquire strength of voice and force of utterance is known to every
school-boy.

If strength of voice is of paramount importance to the speaker, it is also
an element which is very susceptible of cultivation. Professor Russell
says,--"The fact is familiar to instructors in elocution, that persons
commencing practice [in vocal gymnastics] with a very weak and inadequate
voice, attain, in a few weeks, a perfect command of the utmost degrees of
force." As has already been intimated, the strength of the voice depends
directly upon the condition and use of the respiratory organs, including
the larynx, and indirectly upon the general health and vigor of the whole
physical system. The volume of breath which can be inhaled, and the force
with which it can be expelled determine the degree of energy with which
vocal sounds are uttered. This fact affords a clear indication of the
proper mode of developing the strength of the voice. It is evident that the
exercises which have for their object the strengthening of the voice,
should also be adapted to develop and perfect the process of breathing. The
student should be frequently trained in set exercises in loud exclamations,