Why tell me that a man is a fine speaker if it is not the truth that he is speaking?  Phocion, who did not speak at all, was a great deal nearer hitting the mark than Demosthenes. (Laughter.) He used to tell the Athenians—­“You can’t fight Philip.  You have not the slightest chance with him.  He is a man who holds his tongue; he has great disciplined armies; he can brag anybody you like in your cities here; and he is going on steadily with an unvarying aim towards his object:  and he will infallibly beat any kind of men such as you, going on raging from shore to shore with all that rampant nonsense.”  Demosthenes said to him one day—­“The Athenians will get mad some day and kill you.”  “Yes,” Phocion says, “when they are mad; and you as soon as they get sane again.” (Laughter.)

It is also told about him going to Messina on some deputation that the Athenians wanted on some kind of matter of an intricate and contentious nature, that Phocion went with some story in his mouth to speak about.  He was a man of few words—­no unveracity; and after he had gone on telling the story a certain time there was one burst of interruption.  One man interrupted with something he tried to answer, and then another; and, finally, the people began bragging and bawling, and no end of debate, till it ended in the want of power in the people to say any more.  Phocion drew back altogether, struck dumb, and would not speak another word to any man; and he left it to them to decide in any way they liked.

It appears to me there is a kind of eloquence in that which is equal to anything Demosthenes ever said—­“Take your own way, and let me out altogether.” (Applause.)

All these considerations, and manifold more connected with them—­innumerable considerations, resulting from observation of the world at this moment—­have led many people to doubt of the salutary effect of vocal education altogether.  I do not mean to say it should be entirely excluded; but I look to something that will take hold of the matter much more closely, and not allow it slip out of our fingers, and remain worse than it was.  For if a good speaker—­an eloquent speaker—­is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation? (Loud cheers.) Of such speech I hear all manner and kind of people say it is excellent; but I care very little about how he said it, provided I understand it, and it be true.  Excellent speaker! but what if he is telling me things that are untrue, that are not the fact about it—­if he has formed a wrong judgment about it—­if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right conclusion in regard to the matter?  An excellent speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying—­“Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true, come hither.” (Great laughter and applause.) I would recommend you to be very chary of that kind of excellent speech. (Renewed laughter.)