FORMING THE ELEMENTS.

The life manifested in the three previous chapters now begins to take more definite thought form.  The intellect seeing more clearly, appeals to the intellects of those who listen that they may think with greater sharpness and distinctness the thoughts presented.  By aiming to present these thoughts so as to be clearly understood, distinctness and precision of utterance are gained.  The elements of speech become more perfectly and beautifully chiseled.  Thus keener thinking and greater care in presentation serve in forming the elements and perfecting the articulation, which need not be made a matter of mechanical drill.

Careless enunciation, which so mars the beauty of a speaker’s discourse, is usually due to careless thinking.  Clear speaking comes from clear thinking.  Exceptional cases of long confirmed bad habits, faultily trained ears, or defects in the vocal apparatus, sometimes make technical drill to meet individual cases, a necessary supplement to the persistent practice in earnest revelation of thought.  But in ordinary cases the speaker’s endeavor to impress his hearers with the parts which make up his discourse will result, in due time, in accurate, distinct articulation.  With continued practice this perfection of speech will become habitual.  Spirit moulds form; this law cannot be overemphasized.  In this new stage of the pupil’s development, as always, the desired result proceeds as an effect from an inner psychological cause; it is a natural and spontaneous outgrowth, rather than a dull and lifeless form.

Analysis.  Example:  “The Song of the Rain.”  Unit, or whole:  The beneficence of rain after a drought.  Here the student should hold the attention of the audience upon the distinct features of the picture presented.  He should make his hearers see and enjoy the rain and appreciate the response of nature and of people to its refreshing influence.

CHAPTER I

ANIMATION.

The tea-kettle and the cricket.

1.  It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the cricket.  And this is what led to it, and how it came about.

2.  The kettle was aggravating and obstinate.  It wouldn’t allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn’t hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble—­a very idiot of a kettle —­on the hearth.  It was quarrelsome, and hissed and sputtered morosely at the fire.

3.  To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in, down to the very bottom of the kettle; and the hull of the Royal George has never made half of the monstrous resistance in coming out of the water which the lid of the kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle before she got it up again.