PREPARING SPEECHES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 6

PREPARING SPEECHES

ADVICE TO YOUNG ORATQip JUDGE ADDRESSES TECH. STUDENTS. When awarding marks to the conr petitors in the prepared and impromptu speeches at the Wanganui Technical College Competitions on Friday moraing, the judge, Mr. H. C. Jenkins, rendered the students some advice concerning the making of speeches. Hii remarks were taken down by Alias L Rogers, a student of the Technical College, and are reproduced here. The report is verbatim: “Judging speeches is, of course, a very difficult matter because there is no standard. One speech which goes well in one place does not go at al) well in another. “The language that the students have used has been excellent. There has been fine phrasing and an excellent choice of words, which I think reflects very highly to the credit of their teachers. “Now, in regard to the speeches, I think that they Were, on the whole, quite good, but there is one thing that first strikes the eye when one is standing upon a platform. There are very many ways in which c can stand on the platform, and it seems to be the hard luck of most people to strike a comic attitude. Now you noticed how many of the boys, particularly, got hold of their hands. There was boy whom I think thought he was a bjf of a sailor. The best way to arrive at a reasonable stance is not to try and do anything dramatic, but to stand up in an ordinary, normal, and easy way. That comes, of course, with practice, and I suppose it is just as well that we have not got too many practised public speakers. “The next thing I want to say ii that you are not able to deliver a leo ture or an address upon the whol< world in a speech of ten minutes, and it is just as well to take one or tw< leading ideas and carry those one oi two leading ideas to a conclusion. Th< thing to bear in mind is this, that yoi want to convince your audience oi some particular point. Books hav< been written by many authors with th< object of bringing conviction upon two or three ideas. You cannot carry many ideas to a conclusion in the space of ten minutes. Concentrate upon bringing conviction to your audience upon these one or two points. If you do that you generally succeed. That is the best test that must necessarily be Applied to every speech delivered to an audience. “Now there arc two ways of making a speech. One is to state the philosophic basis and to build up that basis by by illustration an£ elaboration; and the other way is to take the facts as they are, and gQ through the facts and discover tho underlying truth. Mjx Jackson took a good philosophic his erudition, I found, was good. His » speech was slow, which is not a bad fault, because most people are not very quick in Jhe uptake, and if they get i slow speaker they are able to follow him better. Now he used some arguments that probably I do not agre< with. I would suggest to speakers that they test their arguments before they use them. Always test your arguments to see that they are really sound. Afost of Air. Jackson’s arguments may or may not have been sound. I think it would be well for him to bear in mind that his arguments must be sound before they are included in the speech. Ho overdid the .quotations! they were were very good and very appropriate. but he overdid them. The German Chancellor. Von Bulow, was very frequent with his quotations, and tho public charged him with having a book of quotations under his arm. It is regarded as an attempt to indicate a man of wide reading, but if you overdo tho quotations people arc inclined to think that you are not a man of wide erudition but a quotation hunter.” Prepared Speeches. “The most important speeches In life are the prepared speeches. Now most men strive to appear to speak impromptu. I think it is a sort of vanity with us that the public inspires* and that is that the man who speak without notes is “the” mam Well, I have heard some of the best speakers in the world—men like Mr. Lloyd George, Air. Afasterman, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Balfour, Afr. Winstone Churchill, and men of that calibre—and most of them give great attention to the preparation of their speeches. Afr. Churchill, who is a most effective speaker, practises hia arguments all day long to the bed post before he puts his speech over, and ha also tells us that in his quiet moments he practises the impromptu asides. Coming to the speeches delivered here to-day, I thing that the most outstanding speaker of the morning was Mias Doris McClymont. I found that her stance was good, and that she stood up quite easily and then developed her ideas quite reasonably and in proper sequence. Her material was good and her speech was well delivered. Her elocution was also good and I was pleased to note the intelligence of the audience she was speaking to, because they applauded her so well. The next speaker on my list is Alexander in the junior. He was sincere and convincing, and his stance was appropriate. Air. B. G. Jackson, of Pirani.w started off with a good philosophilA, basis. ”