"Arbitrary choice ... of one subject from among a number involves so many

important considerations that no speaker ever fails to appreciate the tone of

satisfaction in him who triumphantly announces: 'I have a subject!'

 

"'Do give me a subject!' How often the weary school teacher hears that cry. Then

a list of themes is suggested, gone over, considered, and, in most instances,

rejected, because the teacher can know but imperfectly what is in the pupil's

mind. To suggest a subject in this way is like trying to discover the street on

which a lost child lives, by naming over a number of streets until one strikes

the little one's ear as sounding familiar.

 

"Choice by development is a very different process. It does not ask, What shall

I say? It turns the mind in upon itself and asks, What do I think? Thus, the

subject may be said to choose itself, for in the process of thought or of

reading one theme rises into prominence and becomes a living germ, soon to grow

into the discourse. He who has not learned to reflect is not really acquainted

with his own thoughts; hence, his thoughts are not productive. Habits of reading

and reflection will supply the speaker's mind with an abundance of subjects of

which he already knows something from the very reading and reflection which gave

birth to his theme. This is not a paradox, but sober truth.

 

"It must be already apparent that the choice of a subject by development savors

more of collection than of conscious selection. The subject 'pops into the

mind.' ... In the intellect of the trained thinker it concentrates--by a process

which we have seen to be induction--the facts and truths of which he has been