ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MEMORIZING SPEECHES

Some of the most highly successful speakers carefully wrote out,
revised, and committed to memory important passages in their speeches.
These they dexterously wove into the body of their addresses in such a
natural manner as not to expose their method.

This plan, however, is not to be generally recommended, since few men
have the faculty of rendering memorized parts so as to make them appear
extempore. If you recite rather than speak to an audience, you may be a
good entertainer, but just to that degree will you impair your power and
effectiveness as a public speaker.

There are speakers who have successfully used the plan of committing to
memory significant sentences, statements, or sayings, and skilfully
embodying them in their speeches. You might test this method for
yourself, tho it is attended with danger.

If possible, join a local debating society, where you will have
excellent opportunity for practise in thinking and speaking on your
feet. Many distinguished public speakers have owed their fluency of
speech and self-confidence to early practise in debate.


THE VALUE OF REPETITION

Persuasion is a task of skill. You must bring to your aid in speaking
every available resource. An effective weapon at times is a "remorseless
iteration." Have the courage to repeat yourself as often as may be
necessary to impress your leading ideas upon the minds of your hearers.
Note the forensic maxim, "tell a judge twice whatever you want him to
hear; tell a special jury thrice, and a common jury half a dozen times,
the view of a case you wish them to entertain."


THE NEED OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

Whatever methods of premeditation you adopt in the preparation of a
speech, having planned everything to the best of your ability, dismiss
from your mind all anxiety and all thought about yourself.

Right preparation and earnest practise should give you a full degree of
confidence in your ability to perform the task before you. When you
stand at last before the audience, it should be with the assurance that
you are thoroughly equipped to say something of real interest and
importance.


THE POWER OF PERSONALITY

Personality plays a vital part in a speaker's success. Gladstone
described Cardinal Newman's manner in the pulpit as unsatisfactory if
considered in its separate parts. "There was not much change in the
inflection of his voice; action there was none; his sermons were read,
and his eyes were always on his book; and all that, you will say, is
against efficiency in preaching. Yes; but you take the man as a whole,
and there was a stamp and a seal upon him, there was solemn music and
sweetness in his tone, there was a completeness in the figure, taken
together with the tone and with the manner, which made even his delivery
such as I have described it, and tho exclusively with written sermons,
singularly attractive."


THE DANGER OF IMITATION

It is a fatal mistake, as I have said, to set out deliberately to
imitate some favorite speaker, and to mold your style after his. You
will observe certain things and methods in other speakers which will fit
in naturally with your style and temperament. To this extent you may
advantageously adopt them, but always be on your guard against anything
which might in the slightest degree impair your own individuality.

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The Art of Public Speaking