Part 1 (2/2)

There are tarrantable assumptions in what Dr Whateley writes about Elocution: 1 That a reader or speaker can do with an untrained voice what his s impel him, to do Not one in a thousand can 2 That all principles of Elocution which ht will continue in the consciousness of the reader or speaker--that he will be ever thinking of the vocal functions which he exercises 'The reader's attention,' he says, 'being fixed on his own voice, the inevitable consequence would be that he would betray more or less his studied and artificial delivery'

All true culture, to _be_ true, must be unconscious of the processes which induced it But before it is attained, one must be more or less 'under the law,' until he become a law to himself, and do spontaneously and unconsciously what he once had to do consciously, and with effort

It ard to Elocution were sohly artificial style of pulpit oratory which appears to have been the fashi+on in the Dublin of his day (Note 1) He was a rity, with such a resulting aversion to shaard all training in vocal delivery as unfavorable to genuineness

His theory was fully confirmed, he may have felt, by some of the popular theatrical preachers around him, who made a display of the, and--hit it'

When I was a so, all the scholars had to read aloud twice a day; the several classes standing while they read, and toeing a chalk line The books used were the New Testalish Reader The standard instruction iood so far as it went, namely, 'Speak distinctly and le verse of the New Testalish Reader; the 'raph, each ti went around the class

Well, the result was that all the boys acquired at least a distinct articulation and a fluent utterance, properly sectioned off by theirthe stops Some of the boys, of whom I was one, had to read aloud, at home, from other books When I showed by my expression, or, rather, by , I was at once told so, the passage was explained and read to ht theand the proper expression If I were required to read so which was entirely new toahead of , to the extent of a sentence or two, in order to read with sufficient expression not to be stopped, as I was very impatient of interruption, especially if I particularly enjoyed the subject-matter

When I look back upon these daily exercises in reading, at school and at ho could have been better at the tiesture, 'li after effect It was si, with no atteiven to any affectation of that kind; but whatever i and appreciation on my part, was duly praised; and I was very fond of praise, and was sti has very one out of use, and that untimely technical instruction has taken its place Call on a college student to read any prose passage extempore, and what is the result in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred? Why, he will read it, _experto credite_, in aith an i or perspective; and if the passage be an involved and long-suspended period, which his eye should run along and grasp as a whole, in advance of his voice, he will be lost in it before he get half way through it He has had little or no practice in reading aloud He has 'parsed'has not resulted in synthesis (which should be the sole object of all analysis), has not resulted in a knowledge of language as a living organism, and the consequence is that his extee isrequires that the eye be well trained to keep ahead of the voice, and to take in a whole period, or a whole stanza, in order that each part of it be read with reference to the whole, that is, with the proper perspective To do this derasp, the result of

The perspective of speech is virtually a part of the ive his hearers the exactout as proet a correct irees of importance, unless he do for himself what the reader should do; and, certainly, not many hearers are equal to this--not one in a thousand Our estis are e part in whatever we take account of What would a picture be without perspective? But it is of equal ireater ie

A true perspective demands, on the part of the reader, the nicest sense of the relative values of successive and involved groups or sections of thought--those belonging to the ht to the front with a fulness of expression, and the subordinate groups or sections according to their several degrees of subordination, being thrown back with a corresponding reduction of expression Along with this, the wholewhich reveals the spirit of the whole Could there be any better test than reading, of a student's knowledge of the organic structure of the language, and the extent to which the thought is spiritualized? Hardly The ordinary exah questions, are wholly inadequate for getting at such knowledge--for evoking a student's sense of the _life_ of the language as an organ of the intellectual and the spiritual

Technical knowledge is a good thing in its way, but a knowledge of life, in whatever for And it is only life that can awaken life Technical knowledge, by itself, is only dry bones The technical, indeed, cannot by itself be appreciated It must be appreciated as an expression of life--as an expression of the plastic spirit of thought and feeling

Reading e

It ive life to the letter How comparatively little is addressed to the eye, in print or manuscript, of what has to be addressed to the ear by a reader! There are no indications of tone, quality of voice, inflection, pitch, time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded for a full intellectual and spiritual interpretation A poem is not truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader who has adequately assiain, according to his individual spiritual constitution and experiences The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed poem, must be vocally realized What Shelley, in his lines 'To a Lady, with a Guitar,' says of what the revealings of the instrument depend upon, s of every true poem; it

'will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it; It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before,'

by those who endeavor to get at its secrets

Good reading is a vocal manifestation of responsiveness, on the part of the reader, to the hieroglyphic letter

Such early training in reading as I have described, is the best preparation for the her literature And we shall not have a true, honest vocal interpretation of literature until we return to this early honest reading I say 'return,'

for, so far as oes, there is a plentiful lack of it, at present, in primary schools--a lack so ae which students are compelled to acquire in the schools _There is no time left for education_ He would be the ideal teacher who could induce a maximum amount of education on the basis of a minimum amount of acquirement But just the reverse prevails Acquirement is made the all in all, and education is left to take care of itself The acquisition of knowledge, too, becoence with thousands of people, in these days--an indulgence which renders them more and more averse to any of that independent activity of ely depends

I aouve says, in his 'Petit Traite de lecture a haute voix a l'usage des ecoles pri aloud In the very opening sentence of this work, he says, 'La lecture a haute voix compte, en Amerique, parmi les elements les plus importants de l'instruction publique; elle est une des bases de l'enseignement primaire' And elsewhere he calls upon the people of France to i the art of reading aloud the very corner-stone of public education! Where could M Legouve have got this reh estiency? From whatever source he derived it, it is certainly most relect of the art of reading in England (Correspondence, edited by Professor Dowden, p 225), is quite applicable to this country After saying that he regards the reading of Shakespeare to boys and girls, if it be well read and they are apt, 'as carrying with it a deeper cultivation than anything else which can be done to cultivate thest all the efforts which arethat is to be known, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, the one thing o the to find any one who _can_ teach it; but it is an art which reat rapidity, if a due appreciation of it were to beco would be a ht in lectures which can be conveyed only by voice and utterance, and not by books'

Here, by the way, is indicated what the literary lecture should be It is a co to lecture about literary products and to deal out literary knowledge of various kinds, and cheap philosophy in regard to the relations of literature to tiht do this respectably ithout e of the literature itself But what students especially need is to be brought into direct relationshi+p with literature in its essential, absolute character; so that the very highest for Such reading brings home to sufficiently susceptible students what cannot be lectured about--namely, the intellectually indefinite element of a literary product Much of what is otherwise done for students, in the way of lecturing, they could do quite as well for theht to consist chiefly of quotations' The same should be said of a literary lecture, with the important addition to the word 'quotations,' 'effectively read'

To return froe to Sir Henry Taylor, is not so strange when it is considered that the dealing out of knowledge, in the schools, on the part of the teacher, and the acquiring of it on the part of students, leave no time for education of any kind except the little which is _incident_ upon the ie 'from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall'

Perhaps the greatest danger to which education proper will be reat increase of knowledge, in every departht This e, the tely increase to reatest possible aes, and universities, the leading aiive the student the fullest command of his faculties, should certainly be the prie should be subservient; but this object seeht of, while to craeneous knowledge, is getting more and more to be, if not the sole, at any rate the chief, consideration This state of things prevails frohest schools We hear and read _ad nauseam_ that the word 'education'