--CATO.

 

Conversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student.

 

--EMERSON, _Essays: Circles_.

 

The father of W.E. Gladstone considered conversation to be both an art and an

accomplishment. Around the dinner table in his home some topic of local or

national interest, or some debated question, was constantly being discussed. In

this way a friendly rivalry for supremacy in conversation arose among the

family, and an incident observed in the street, an idea gleaned from a book, a

deduction from personal experience, was carefully stored as material for the

family exchange. Thus his early years of practise in elegant conversation

prepared the younger Gladstone for his career as a leader and speaker.

 

There is a sense in which the ability to converse effectively is efficient

public speaking, for our conversation is often heard by many, and occasionally

decisions of great moment hinge upon the tone and quality of what we say in

private.

 

Indeed, conversation in the aggregate probably wields more power than press and

platform combined. Socrates taught his great truths, not from public rostrums,

but in personal converse. Men made pilgrimages to Goethe's library and

Coleridge's home to be charmed and instructed by their speech, and the culture