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 4IC£ 
 
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[With the Author's Compliments. .] 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 OF 
 
 ELOCUTIONISTS. 
 
 SPEAK DISTINCTLY, AND SPEAK OUT." [P. 24.1 
 
 By ALEXANDEB MELVILLE BELL, 
 
 ii 
 
 Honorary Member of the Association. 
 
 AND PUBLISHED BY ^ — "* 
 
 THE VOLTA BUREAU, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 1895. 
 
-^v 
 
 V> 
 
 £> A 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 viTlONAL ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 
 
 Since I have been settled in the United 
 States, I have done nothing in the way 
 of teaching, beyond giving an occasional 
 private lesson; so that, when you enrolled 
 me as an honorary member of this Associa- 
 tion, your recognition was not so much of a 
 fellow teacher, as of one who was believed to 
 have at heart the interests of Elocution, from 
 long connection with the study and teaching 
 of the subject. I am glad to take advantage 
 of this opportunity to thank the Association 
 for its gratifying action in my behalf ; and to 
 assure you of my desire to see this National 
 Association of Elocutionists prosper, in num- 
 bers and influence, throughout the United 
 States. 
 
 I have had the pleasure of dedicating to 
 you a couple of little pamphlets on topics of 
 professional interest; and I purpose, on this 
 
4 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 occasion, to make a few remarks on some prac- 
 tical points, which I think worthy of your at- 
 tention. 
 
 When I first visited the city of Boston, in 
 1868, I met onr distinguished professional 
 brother, the late Lewis B. Monroe, who was 
 then Superintendent of Elocution in tbe city 
 schools. I was taken by Professor Monroe on 
 one of his rounds of visits to the schools, and 
 I witnessed with delight the affectionate greet- 
 ing of the various classes to their beloved in- 
 structor. As I afterwards told Professor Mon- 
 roe, I had been particularly struck with the 
 way in which his pupils spoke out. I could 
 not get my young lady classes in Edinburgh 
 or London to deliver the voice with anything 
 like the same energy and clearness. The ef- 
 fect was no doubt due to the teacher's per- 
 sonal magnetism, which irresistibly drew out 
 the expressive sounds with loving confidence. 
 This art of speaking out is one of the princi- 
 pal topics on which I wish to address you. 
 
 Speaking out is a very different thing from 
 yelling or bawling — which is far from being 
 uncommon. Yelling keeps the voice con- 
 stantly on the strain, and violates the mechan- 
 ical principles of vocal expression ; which re- 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. O 
 
 quire each tone to taper in force, and to start 
 from a higher or lower pitch according as it 
 is afterwards to turn downwards or upwards. 
 Yelling tones are hardly inflected at all. The 
 female voice in this country is too generally 
 harsh, high in pitch, and inflexible. What 
 King Lear says of Cordelia may be commended 
 to all ladies : 
 
 '' Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low : — 
 An excellent thing in woman." 
 
 Speaking out consists simply in intensify- 
 ing the vowel sounds, without interfering with 
 expressive intonation. We instinctively raise 
 the voice in calling to a person at a distance ; 
 and we should, in speaking to an audience, 
 throw out the sound so as to reach the far- 
 thest hearer. The voice may fail to carry so 
 far ; but it will, at all events, go to the ex- 
 tent of the speaker's power, and be well heard 
 at all intermediate distances. The fault with 
 many speakers is that the voice is not aimed 
 at any point; it merely tumbles out, like a 
 bullet with no explosive behind it. 
 
 There is another subject which cannot fail 
 to strike an observer ; namely, the excessive 
 motion which, among school children, is 
 
t> ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 given to the mouth in speaking. I do not re- 
 fer to the Gum habit ; although that, I suspect, 
 is directly responsible for another but happily 
 less common fault; namely, the working of 
 the jaw from side to side. Vertical jerking 
 is bad enough, but when to this is added hori- 
 zontal oscillation, the effect is most unsightly. 
 
 The tongue, and not the jaw, is the agent 
 of articulation ; but one can scarcely be con- 
 scious of the tongue's positions while the jaw 
 is constantly opening and closing. These 
 motions really effect nothing. Voice is formed 
 in the throat, and its emission through the 
 mouth is impeded rather than facilitated by 
 this masticatory action. The clear articula- 
 tion of consonants, too, depends on lingual 
 firmness, and this is rendered impossible by 
 the looseness of the jaw; substituting for in- 
 ternal impulse what some one has aptly de- 
 scribed as " chin- whack." Consonants in this 
 way lose their essential percussive quality, 
 and the whole of speech becomes slurred and 
 indistinct. 
 
 When I condemn this excessive action of 
 the jaw I am not to be understood as recom- 
 mending speakers to keep the teeth closed. 
 Open the mouth freely, to the degree requi- 
 
ASSOCIATION" OF ELOCUTIONISTS. ( 
 
 site to let the vowels out directly from tlie 
 throat, without being niumed by teeth, ^ or 
 lips, or any part of the oral channel. Ex- 
 pansion of the hack of the mouth increases the 
 free cavity far more than can be accomplished 
 by the widest opening of the jaw. This in- 
 terior expansion is, therefore, what we should 
 cultivate. 
 
 The purity of the voice is apt to be affected 
 in various ways ; as : through contraction of 
 the fauces, or of the lips — shrouding the 
 sound, as it were behind a veil ; — or through 
 interception of the voice by the soft palate, 
 and consequent emission through the nose. 
 
 The latter fault is very common. Its cause 
 is depression of the soft palate ; and its cure 
 is elevation of the soft palate ; — an action 
 which, at the same time, expands the mouth 
 passage, and also prevents the diversion of 
 the breath into the nose. 
 
 But this is not the place for entering into 
 particulars such as pertain to text-books. My 
 desire is to deal only with general principles ; 
 respecting which, I think, there will be little 
 difference of opinion. 
 
 There should be no difficulty in correcting 
 the nasalizing habit, unless such as arises from 
 
8 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 the fact, that so many of the correctors are 
 themselves addicted to it. You remember 
 what Rosalind says of love : 
 
 " Love is merely a madness ; and, I tell yon, 
 deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as 
 madmen do : and the reason why they are 
 not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy 
 is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love 
 too." 
 
 Habits — especially those of speech — are 
 formed imperceptibly, and, rarely without 
 difficulty, do we become conscious of their sin- 
 gularity. Even nursery characteristics re- 
 main persistent in adult life. A habit of lisp- 
 ing, for example, or some other childish trick 
 of mispronunciation, may deform the utter- 
 ance of the Bench or the Pulpit ; while every 
 ear, but, perhaps, that of the speaker, is ob- 
 servant of the defect. The tones and articu- 
 lations of our earliest dialect are transplanted 
 to our latest acquirements in language. Thus 
 we hear English-French, Scotch-French, Irish- 
 French, Grerman-French, <fcc.; the nationality 
 of the speaker being revealed through some 
 petty difference in the utterance of an ele- 
 mentary sound. Such shibboleths are — the 
 trilled R of Scotland, the vowelized R of Eng- 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. V 
 
 land, the name-sounds of A and O in both 
 these countries, the sounds of B D Gr in Ger- 
 many, and the sound of Er, and also the 
 diphthongal pronunciation of short vowels, in 
 the United States. 
 
 A class of even the youngest children may 
 be made to pronounce all elementary sounds 
 with uniformity. This should be a regular 
 exercise, until the ears are trained to discrim- 
 inate the nicest varieties. And what an ad- 
 vantage would be thus conferred, not only in 
 the use of our native language, but also in 
 the mastery of any foreign tongue ! 
 
 The value of elementary exercise can hardly 
 be overrated. Elocutionary pupils are apt to 
 be impatient to get to reading and declama- 
 tion, without being troubled with elements. 
 Here the skill and tact of the teacher are dis- 
 played, in giving interest to rudimentary drill, 
 and in partially gratifying the young ambi- 
 tion by regulated indulgence in the practice 
 of delivery. Some of the greatest masters of 
 singing never allowed their pupils to practise 
 a single song. There is no way by which the 
 voice and the ear can be so effectively culti- 
 vated, as by the practice of scales and exer- 
 cises. Every lesson should include a portion 
 
10 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 of such work. I may be allowed to say that 
 I speak from long experience in this matter. 
 I commenced each of my class-lessons by a re- 
 visal of the scales of articulate elements and 
 tones. This occupied only a few minutes ; 
 but it made the pupils so familiar with all the 
 relations of the sounds that practical applica- 
 tion became spontaneous. And I am sure 
 that weariness of that portion of the lesson 
 was unknown. 
 
 My own studies were for many years alto- 
 gether elementary. The Tables of vowels, of 
 consonants, and of tones, which I published 
 in 1849, represented a long antecedent of 
 study and experiment. My days being filled 
 up with practical work in teaching, the nights, 
 — strictly limited to the hours from ten p. m. 
 till two a. m. — were devoted to theoretical 
 work, in investigating the mechanism of 
 sounds, and in tabulating all appreciated va- 
 rieties. 
 
 An international effort had been made by 
 leading philologists of Europe to frame a Uni- 
 versal Alphabet by collecting the elementary 
 sounds from languages ; but the attempt had 
 been definitely abandoned as impracticable, 
 or, — as the record shows, — as " impossible." 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 11 
 
 I had been striving, in the meantime, to find 
 the basis of a universal alphabet — not in lan- 
 guages, but in the organs of speech. In this, 
 after many years, I was successful. Then — 
 and not till then — I discovered that my 
 schemes of sounds were susceptible of a self- 
 explanatory symbolism, by which writing be- 
 came a real Visible Speech. Seeking merely 
 for a universal alphabet, I had found a means 
 of teaching Universal Speech in connection 
 with any language. 
 
 I may add that the system has been used, 
 hitherto, chiefly in teaching the deaf to speak. 
 Its most comprehensive application, namely 
 to foreign tongues, has, as yet, been but little 
 developed. There is a world-wide field wait- 
 ing for cultivation by linguistic students of 
 Visible Speech. 
 
 Recurring to our more immediate subject, 
 Elocution ; — Nothing more shows the need of 
 speech-training in common schools, than the 
 smothered vocality, and articulative mum- 
 bling, which characterize the delivery of a 
 large proportion of adult speakers. These, 
 after having passed through the whole cur- 
 riculum of the schools, fail in the first re- 
 quirement of delivery — namely, to make 
 
12 ADDEESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 themselves intelligible, — when they appear 
 on the platform. They mutter, as if reading 
 only for their own information; and their 
 hearers have to strain attention to catch a 
 sentence, or a word, here and there. 
 
 This defect is most prominent in Learned 
 Societies, the meetings of which are, from this 
 cause, too often, a weariness to the spirit. 
 You will hear matter which is well worthy of 
 being treasured and pondered, but which is 
 entirely thrown away through ineffective de- 
 livery. The reproach here belongs to the 
 schools. Every boy and every girl should be 
 taught to speak distinctly, and to speak so 
 that the voice may easily reach the hearers. 
 Of course, where elocution is made a separate 
 study, these matters are attended to; but 
 they should never be neglected, even where 
 elocution is unheard of. They belong to com- 
 mon sense. 
 
 Indistinctness of articulation, and smoth- 
 ering of the voice, are the two prevailing 
 faults of public speaking, and they defeat its 
 very object. Gentlemen who "read papers " 
 come on the platform without preparation for 
 the reading. They ought to be so familiar 
 with their subject that they do not need to 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 13 
 
 keep the eye constantly on the writing ; yet 
 this is the habitual attitude of a large major- 
 ity of these readers. Common courtesy dic- 
 tates that a speaker should look at the person 
 addressed. You might as well post a letter 
 without address on the envelope, as read with 
 out directing the matter by the eye to the 
 hearers. What might otherwise be disre- 
 garded, or consigned to the mental waste- 
 basket, will be received with attention, when 
 thus "presented as a personal communication. 
 The freedom of the eye to range among the 
 auditors, of course involves familiarity with 
 the page, by rehearsals of the reading. You 
 slight your audience when you stumble over 
 words in attempted "reading at sight." 
 
 A paper intended to be read publicly is 
 generally written with a view to delivery; 
 allowance being made for the effect of vocal 
 expression to make clear what might other 
 wise need to be stated in greater detail. But 
 how often we hear papers that drag through 
 a mass of what seem gleanings from a note- 
 book ; that lack point and finish ; and are 
 like those formless sketches which an artist 
 makes as mere memoranda from which he may 
 ultimately elaborate a picture. We want no 
 
14 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 such sketchy work in our conventions, but 
 only the fine results of care and skill. This 
 requirement may lessen the bulk of our ex- 
 hibits, and the number of contributors; but 
 that will be no disadvantage if quality be 
 at the same time improved. 
 
 The first requisite of a speaker is, of course, 
 that he shall have something to say, — that is, 
 something more than platitudes and words, — 
 " words, words, words ! " The next is, that he 
 shall throw out his voice so as to reach his 
 auditors, — and this depends more on vocal 
 management than on power of lungs; the 
 third and last is, that he shall say only one 
 thing at a time. This is the point in which 
 most speakers fail. Their aim seems to be 
 simply to connect the beginning with the end 
 of a sentence, indiscriminative of sense or sen- 
 timent in the intervening portions ; and the 
 hearer's mind has no time to take in the sepa- 
 rate ideas, so as afterwards to digest and as- 
 similate them. 
 
 The result is — that strings of sentences, 
 often bejeweled with gems of thought, pass 
 without appreciation or recognition ; and, as 
 the homely phrase says, what we hear " goes 
 in at one ear and out at the other." Here is 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 15 
 
 the elocutionist's field. Take-in the whole 
 scope of a sentence by the eye, but pronounce 
 its parts one by one ; with separation by pause, 
 or pitch, or tone, or rate. Your object is not 
 to say, " listen to this sentence," but " listen 
 to these thoughts." Drive in the nails, each 
 in its own hole, and clinch them individually 
 by appropriate expression. 
 
 The importance of this topic will justify 
 something more of detail. The " subject " of 
 a sentence, when it is new to the context, 
 should always be given by itself, — the predi- 
 cate by itself, and every circumstantial phrase, 
 — expressive of how, or why, or what, or any 
 subordinate fact, — should stand apart, in 
 higher or lower relief, from the body of the 
 sentence. A Master of Ceremonies is not 
 more punctilious in his arrangements, than a 
 speaker, in the distribution of light and shade 
 among his clausula!* and sentential utterances. 
 
 This logical quality of delivery finds its 
 best illustrations on the stage. All eminent 
 actors have uniformly been exemplars of such 
 leisurely and thoughtful elocution. 
 
 "And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy 
 last night i " 
 
 " Oh, against all rule : most ungrammati- 
 
16 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 cally ! Betwixt the substantive and the ad- 
 jective, which should agree together in num- 
 ber, case, and gender, he made a breach, 
 
 thus stopping as if the point wanted set- 
 tling; and betwixt the nominative and the 
 verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a 
 dozen times; — three seconds and three fifths, 
 by a stop-watch, each time ! Admirable gram- 
 marian ! " 
 
 "But, in suspending his voice, was the sense 
 suspended likewise ? Did no expression of 
 attitude or countenance fill up the chasm ? 
 Was the eye silent ? Did you narrowly look ? " 
 
 "I looked only at the stop-watch." 
 
 "Excellent critic ! " 
 
 A good speaker will always make use of 
 these silent expressions of attitude, counte- 
 nance, and eye, to corroborate and enforce his 
 language. 
 
 Speakers in this country suffer no disad- 
 vantage by comparison with those in Britain. 
 My experience on both sides of the Atlantic 
 has been the same; namely, that the most high- 
 ly educated classes furnish the smallest pro- 
 portion of effective orators and readers. Of 
 course there is a cause for this. The cause is 
 patent ; — in the fact that the subject of vocal 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 17 
 
 delivery is neglected in schools and colleges. 
 Elocution has a bad name. It is supposed to 
 be unworthy of serious study. Scholarship 
 despises it. Mouthing and rant are its popu- 
 lar representatives. This Association will, I 
 trust, redeem the name by establishing a 
 standard of culture and refinement, that will 
 elevate the study in the estimation of the 
 learned world. 
 
 The modern degradation of an art, which 
 formed the most honoured division of the an- 
 cient all-embracing study of Rhetoric, is, no 
 doubt, largely due to belittlement by elocu- 
 tionists themselves. The stigma of this we 
 inherit ; and our first care must be to live it 
 down — by scientific precept and example, in 
 our own professional work. 
 
 When you come together, in annual con- 
 vention, for mutual profit and social com- 
 munion, the least and last of the objects that 
 should be aimed at is individual display. 
 This is too much associated with the name of 
 Elocution already. You, as teachers, have 
 many practical points to discuss, many theo- 
 ries to examine and compare ; and these meet- 
 ings should be mainly devoted to exercises of 
 this kind. The chief function of such peri- 
 
18 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 odical assemblies, is, I conceive, to act as a 
 Parliament of Elocutionists ; to consider ques- 
 tions of common interest ; to investigate meth- 
 ods ; to receive and issue suggestions ; and to 
 diffuse information among the members of the 
 association. 
 
 Exhibitions of dramatic and other gifts of 
 delivery, and opportunities for mutual criti- 
 cism, are, however, not to be neglected. Sim- 
 ply discourage the idea that such entertain- 
 ments constitute the sum and substance of 
 Elocution. Distinguish between business and 
 pleasure, and attend to business first. 
 
 Our present primary object must be to 
 prove the worthiness of elocution as an intel- 
 lectual study. This study necessarily in- 
 cludes composition, as well as delivery; the 
 analysis and synthesis of language ; the theo- 
 retical and vocal principles of expression ; the 
 art of breathing ; the distinctions of inflexion 
 and pitch ; the laws and practical application 
 of emphasis; the cultivation of dramatic 
 power ; and everything pertaining to attitude 
 and gesture. There is, undoubtedly, some 
 principle involved in whatever we do ; and 
 we should have a clear perception of what we 
 do, in any given case, as well as be able to 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 19 
 
 furnish the reason for our so doing. Self-ob- 
 servation and self-criticism are grand deside- 
 rata. As the poet Burns says : 
 
 " O, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us, 
 To see oursels as ithers see us ! 
 It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 
 And foolish notion." 
 
 An old writer observes, in reference to this 
 faculty of self-examination : " As the eye seeth 
 all things and cannot see itself, so, we see 
 other men's faults, and cannot see our own." 
 We may, however, in a code of Principles, 
 " set us up a glass " where we may read " the 
 inmost part." 
 
 Many years ago ( 1 8 5 0-' 5 1 ) , in my young mis- 
 sionary zeal for my favourite subject, I gave a 
 series of lectures on "Elocutionary Revival 
 and Reform " in the principal university towns 
 of Scotland; — in Edinburgh, where I resided, 
 in Glasgow, and in Aberdeen. These lectures 
 excited — temporarily at all events — a good 
 deal of interest ; and, I remember, the points 
 I made were precisely the same that I should 
 repeat, were I undertaking the work to-day; 
 namely, the want of proper recognition of the 
 subject in schools and colleges ; the real but 
 misunderstood value of the study ; the scien- 
 
20 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 tific basis on which instruction should be 
 founded; and the abuse of the name of elo- 
 cution, by its association with mimicry and 
 bluster. Matters are but little changed from 
 that day to this. These are exactly the con- 
 ditions that call for present complaint. 
 
 But at last a step has been taken, by the 
 organizing of this National Association, which 
 may happily lead to a revival of the estima- 
 tion in which delivery was held a score of cen- 
 turies ago. 
 
 "What is the first requisite of oratory?" 
 was asked of one of the great old masters. 
 
 "Action," was the answer. 
 
 "And what the second? " 
 
 "Action." 
 
 "And the third ? " 
 
 "Action." 
 
 Elocution now means what "action" did 
 in this celebrated dialogue. Elocution was 
 then assumed to be the one thing needful ; 
 the first and last requirement of the public 
 speaker. 
 
 Our valuation may not quite reach so high 
 a pitch ; but we see enough every day of the 
 influence of delivery, to convince us of the 
 enormous advantages which even a moderate 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 21 
 
 degree of superiority gives to its fortunate pos- 
 sessor. 
 
 Good speakers are by no means rare, but 
 they are heard chiefly among conversational- 
 ists; who have only to cultivate the art of 
 speaking out, to excel on the platform as in 
 the coterie. The conversational style will 
 never give a speaker high rank. The voice 
 wants resonance, the vowels want precision, 
 and the consonants want firmness. The slur- 
 ring of syllables, which characterizes ordinary 
 conversation, is fatal to success in oratory. 
 
 The conversational style has, unfortunate- 
 ly, taken possession of the stage ; and great- 
 ness of artistic delineation, in the higher 
 drama, is almost unknown. The theatres are 
 too large for the performers ; or rather the 
 style of the performers is too small for the 
 theatres ; and the success of a piece depends 
 more on the costumer, and the scene-painter, 
 than on the dramatic writer, or on the actor. 
 There is no place for elocution. 
 
 The elocution of the theatre must be on a 
 scale commensurate with the distance of the 
 speaker from the hearers. Just as a pic- 
 ture intended to be viewed a few feet off 
 would be worthless as a piece of stage drapery, 
 
22 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 so, delivery that serves for tete-a-tete colloquy 
 is worthless for stage dialogue. Our players 
 fail to realize this. They speak to one an- 
 other with what would be a very natural ef- 
 fect, if they were only speaking to one another ; 
 but they must remember that their most pri- 
 vate conversations are intended, not for their 
 own ears, but for a whole houseful of listen- 
 ers. Even a stage whisper mast be audible 
 to the farthest limit of the gallery. The work 
 of the scene-painter — beautifully effective in 
 the distance — looks rough and meaningless to 
 one who is close to the canvas ; and so, the 
 sotto voce of the actor may sound anything but 
 soft to one who stands at his elbow. " 'Tis 
 distance lends enchantment to the view " — 
 and also to the voice. Action and utterance 
 must combine to produce a sort of ventrilo- 
 quial deception on the ear. This is one of 
 the causes that make the art of acting so dif- 
 ficult of mastery. 
 
 Some of the best public speakers I have 
 ever heard were ladies. Their crisp articula- 
 tion, clear vocality, and distinct syllabication 
 were a perfect delight to the ear; while their 
 intonations were full of sweetness, music, and 
 expressive variety. Such examples show to 
 what heights elocution may attain. 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 23 
 
 The estimation in which our art is held will, 
 certainly, not be enhanced by those who put 
 posturing on a level with pronouncing; and 
 who teach an elocution of the limbs, as well 
 as of the voice. Gesture is, properly, only an 
 accompaniment to speech — except in panto- 
 mime ; and the speaker should never encroach 
 on the pantomimist's function. To combine 
 pantomime with speech — a very common fault 
 among uncultivated speakers — is tautology ; 
 but there seems a tendency, in higher quar- 
 ters, to dignify this fault by its adoption as a 
 virtue. The best actors use the least gesticu- 
 lation. 
 
 Your department of elocutionary work is — 
 Teaching. You have, therefore, to direct all 
 classes of speakers ; to lay the foundation, in 
 some cases, and to finish the building, in oth- 
 ers. Your professional requirements are, con- 
 sequently, high and varied. You must have 
 a good ear, a good voice, good articulation, 
 good manner, and good judgment ; you must 
 be good phoneticians, good students, good ex- 
 emplars, and good listeners. And to all these 
 good qualities you must add unwearying pa- 
 tience — to bear with those who are not good 
 at anything. 
 
24 ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL 
 
 The fact is very curious that, among our 
 most effective speakers, delivery is often char- 
 acterized and marred by peculiarities of 
 voice, or utterance, or action. We feel that, 
 wanting these defects, the speaker's power 
 would have been increased tenfold ; but we 
 also recognize, that, in spite of these defects, 
 undoubted greatness has been achieved. We 
 learn hence that the true elements of success 
 are independent of the niceties of art. We 
 cannot make a good speaker by merely teach- 
 ing him how to speak. The spirit of the ora- 
 tor must be within. But there are some qual- 
 ities which all effective speakers have in com- 
 mon, and on which their influence depends; 
 namely, they all speak distinctly, and they 
 all speak out. These, then, are the PRIME 
 ELOCUTIONARY REQUISITES. 
 
 The best teacher may still say that he con- 
 tinues to be a learner. Let us all aim at pro- 
 gressive studentship throughout life ; let us 
 improve to our utmost ability the powers we 
 possess ; and encourage in others every effort 
 to develop and dignify the glorious faculty of 
 Speech ! 
 
 I do not know that I have anything fur- 
 ther to say on this occasion. — How often 
 
ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS. 25 
 
 have we wished, that speakers, under simi- 
 lar circumstances, would realize the fact, and 
 stop ! Instead of doing so, they keep on ad- 
 ding, one after another, concluding sentences ; 
 or some new " head " springs up like an un- 
 expected Jack-in- a-box. I shall not inflict 
 this tantalizing process on you but shall at 
 once conclude, by simply commending these 
 discursive remarks to your kindly acceptance. 
 I cannot, I fear, have the pleasure of being 
 present at your proximate meeting in Boston ; 
 and therefore I take this method of address- 
 ing you, in the hope that some of the points 
 I have indicated may be thought worthy of 
 your consideration. 
 

 
WORKS BY PROFESSOR A. MELVILLE BELL. 
 
 I. — Elocution. 
 
 The Principles of Elocution, With Notations and Exercises. 
 Sixth Edition. Price $1.50. 
 Essays and Postscripts on Elocution. Price $1.25. 
 Emphasized Liturgy. Price $1.00. 
 
 Sermon Reading and Memoriter Delivery. Price 15 cents. 
 Speech Tones. Price 15 cents (1893). 
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 Address to the N. A. E. Price 15 cents (1895). 
 
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 Principles oe Speech and Dictionary of Sounds. Revised 
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 Sounds and their Relations. Revised Edition of Visible 
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 Lectures on Phonetics. Price 60 cents. 
 
 English Line Writing. Price 60 cents. 
 
 Popular Manual of Visible Speech and Vocal Physiology. 
 Price 50 cents. 
 
 Visible' Speech Reader. Illustrated. Price 40 cents. 
 
 English Visible Speech in Twelve Lessons. Illustrated. 
 Price 50 eents. 
 
2 Prof. A. Melmlle BelVs Works— (Continued.) 
 
 {Inaugural Edition. ) 
 
 Visible Speech — The Science of Universal Alphabetics. 
 Price $4.00. 
 
 Class Primer of English Visible Speech. Price 20 cents. 
 
 Explanatory Lecture on Visible Speech. Price 15 cents. 
 
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 IV. — Phonetic Orthography . 
 
 World-English — The Universal Language. Price 25 
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 Handbook of World-English. Exercises. Price 25 cents. 
 
 V. — Speech Reading from the Mouth. 
 
 Speech Eeading and Articulation Teaching. Price 25 
 cents. 
 
 The above Works may be obtained, by order, through any 
 bookseller ; or, post-free on receipt of price, from 
 The Volta Bureau, Washington, D. C; 
 also from 
 
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 1525 Thirty-fifth Street, Washington, D. C. 
 
 [To Teachers. — Teachers receive a discount of one-fourth, and 
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 AUG 26 134' 
 

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