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Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1938, Page 4

I wish you to see that speech-making, even in the most public place, is a normal act which calls for no strange, artificial methods, but only for an extension and development of that most familiar act, conversation. If you grasp this idea you will be saved much wasted effort and unnecessary worry and) embarrassment, writes Mr James A. Winans in his book “Speech-mak-ing/’ He is insistent that speakers should be content with “pounding in” a single idea. He writes: —There is a very real temptation to attempt too much in a single speech, and the speaker often feels that his hearers ought to be capable of understanding several major thoughts in one period, and so often they are; but still experience proves that no audience is likely to carry away f/oiu a discourse more than one important thought, that where there is not proper limitation, elimination and subordination of all to one centra] the audience carries away little that is clear and well impressed, and that little as often the least important as the most important. In exposition, in argument and particularly in persuasion, there is need of “pounding in” a single idea. The hearer we must always remember, cannot, like the reader, review and ponder and so impress many thoughts on his mind. The speaker must consider that lie has done well if lie lias clearly and forcefully expressed one thought; very well indeed, if next day his hearers are able to state justly his main idea.