why did not Noah have moving-picture entertainments and talking machines on the

Ark? The laws that enable us to operate an automobile, produce moving-pictures,

or music on the Victrola, would have worked just as well then as they do today.

It was ignorance of law that for ages deprived humanity of our modern

conveniences. Many speakers still use ox-cart methods in their speech instead of

employing automobile or overland-express methods. They are ignorant of laws that

make for efficiency in speaking. Just to the extent that you regard and use the

laws that we are about to examine and learn how to use will you have efficiency

and force in your speaking; and just to the extent that you disregard them will

your speaking be feeble and ineffective. We cannot impress too thoroughly upon

you the necessity for a real working mastery of these principles. They are the

very foundations of successful speaking. "Get your principles right," said

Napoleon, "and the rest is a matter of detail."

 

It is useless to shoe a dead horse, and all the sound principles in Christendom

will never make a live speech out of a dead one. So let it be understood that

public speaking is not a matter of mastering a few dead rules; the most

important law of public speech is the necessity for truth, force, feeling, and

life. Forget all else, but not this.

 

When you have mastered the mechanics of speech outlined in the next few chapters

you will no longer be troubled with monotony. The complete knowledge of these

principles and the ability to apply them will give you great variety in your

powers of expression. But they cannot be mastered and applied by thinking or

reading about them--you must practise, _practise_, _PRACTISE_. If no one else