DISCIPLINE YOUR VOICE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1419, 23 October 1923, Page 6

DISCIPLINE YOUR VOICE.

ADVANTAGES OF CONTROL. Teach your child how to use his voice. If he becomes expert in that, few things will be of more value to him. His voice, more than anything else, expresses his personality and indicates the power of his moral inhibition and the degree of his culture. Teach him to speak Low. A high voice signifies petulance, and petulance means pettiness. The best way to stop a quarrel is to pause, take a long breath, and let the pitch of your voice down three tones. When you begin again you will find that tnclieat has gone out of your dispute. What began as a contention has become a mere difference of opinion. Teach your child to talk slowly, not to let his tongue run before his thought. This he can do if he will accustom himself never to speak until he has clearly worked out in his mind what he is going to say. Teach him to wait. In any group or conference or consultation you will notice that the man who speaks last carries the most authority. Let Mm discipline himself so that when an idea pops into his head he does not hasten to present it at once, but holds it in leash and keeps it in readiness to utter at that moment and juncture when it will have the most force. Teach him to speak distinctly, to get into the habit, even in ordinary conversation, of enunciating every consonant distinctly, never to mumble or fill his speech with urns and ahs. A pleasant voice and a way of speech that is agreeable to hear will carry a man far. You do not want your child to be a pedant or a sissy, to be over-nice, or disagreeably proper; but you do want- him to have the manner of superiority and the air of a gentleman. And a gentleman, said Lord Chesterfield, is never in a hurry.