The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-01 00:00:00

tremes, but education in these days has nothing to
do with the result. A schoolboy i5.,41 his' ime de-
clining, conjugating, parsing, construing, scanning
—all grammatical and critical exercises—reciting
first Latin doggerel About genitives and prteterites ;
then, it must be admitted, Latirt and Greek
speeches and poetry. The Universities merely
complete this course of training. But the habit of
mind imparted by all theists- exercises is rather ad-
verse to method, facility, and elegance of expres-
sion than conducive to these qualities. It often
helps to make men hesitate, boggle, and stammer,
be at a loss for a word, or give two or three worth
instead of one, contradict themselves, explain, re-
peat, and fall into every vice of utterance. The
question, as Lord Stanhope very properly says,
does not refer only to public speaking. The
tongue is continually called into service, and is
alwafs liable to failure for want of a proper
training.
The result is lamentable, and often disagreeable.
The first education that the country can give
offers no security whatever that a man shall not
offend and disgust when he should please and in-
form. Enter church after church, in the metropo-
lis or elsewhere, and you shill hear the prayers
read by a machine, and the sermon read by
a drone. The supplications are solemn without
being serious ; the exhortations have only that
gravity that conduces to sleep.
The one is a pious
form, and the other an unpleasant necessity. It is
onfo toti
ours,r presentto purpose,enlargeuponand certainly is no wish
defects which are the
staple of almost every conversation. in respectable
houses between, he hours of one. and two on Sun-
day afternoon. Nor is this state of things confined
to the Church. Hundreds of excellent gentlemen
aspire to Parliament, and get in or not,—with the
same ultimate ill success. The moment they try
to speak, all their feelings, thoughts, facts, and
purposes either crowd to the tongue or fly alto-
gether, ant leave it utterlye bankrupt. of words.
Those who can speak do not:often-bring credit on
the gift. Indeed, in this country, there is no-
thing which is so often the subject of a sneer as
fluency of speech. It has tecome an affectation
with many that they cannot express themselves,
and they find excuses enough alike in the short-
comings and excesses of others. A large part of
the wisdom, the experience, and the actual
power of the country is unrepresented in
Parliament, through the taciturnity or defective
expression of our public men, while, as a natural
consequence, many who have little else than a
ready command of words obtain an influence be-
yond their just worth. "In the people of the
blind a one-eyed man is king ;" and in an assembly
of bad speakers or mutes a very ordinary orator
will get more than his due. It must be so at the
bar, and in the pulpit also. At the former there are
men who hive been sneered at for their garrulity,
their vulgarity, their tautology, and utter defiance of
all the rules of rhetoric, ever since they opened their
mouths, but when they obtain practice, wealth,
and rank, they can aford to laugh at their brief
less brethren. fn the pulpit the scholar and gen-
tleman from the University pines and incifilders in
his curacy without evou the conviction of ministe-
rialsuccess, while an ignorant Ranter carries away
half his flock, and the vulgar Dissenter, with every
fault of manner and style, with solecisms innume-
rable and unpardonable outrages on social pro-
priety, is run after by thousands, would fill a
Colosseum, and has everything a clergyman can wish
for eiuept a Palace, a Peerage, and "-My Lord."
The chief foundation of his power.is not merely his
own eloquence, but the utter want of that quality
in most of his competitors. He has-been preaching
every day, to a small party or a large oae, ever
since he was 10 years old. He has been among
preachers. When another ended ho began ; and
when he was tired another took it up. His whole
life, short as it is, has been one course of preaching.
The Oxford or Cambridge divine has got up 20
textbooks, can read the Scriptures in the original,
has read the Fathers and the old English theolo-
gians, but never preached except by book, and has
scarcely heard a sermon that was not a written one,
and read accordingly.
No doubt, people must have begun early to speak
well. The child who is allowed to tell his long story
all about nothing at all, or the tale he has read that
morning in his nursery-book, is in training for an
orator. He will very soon have his little audience,
while the philosopher is left on his stool, and the
sulker is left to go where he will. This is domestic
training, which, whether by precept or example,
has more to!do than schools. But if ,schools ace
good for anything, they ought to help here too.

13oys ought to practise that which they will have
to do in future life ; to describe what they have
read, seen, or heard ; to read from other languages
into ,gooel English, as Lord S • anbope says was part
of Pitt's training, to state cases and arguments, and
it) every possible way to acquire readiness, nerve, a
good vocabulary, and a gentle tone of voice, neither
overbearing nor timid, and even a bearing that
shall not be po3itively ridiculous. It stands to
reason, and is certainly borne out by multitudes of
in'tances, that if a child is ever to speak well it
ought to begin as soon as it has the use of its
tongue ; and the course ought not to be intermitted
at school or college. At present all the rhetorical
training a boy has at either of these places he picks
up for himself. If he does this his future career is
often a triumph of self-t)eill over duty, or rather
of nature over learned folly. While the good boys
are plodding over their tasks, writing no end of
verses, racking their brains to find matter for a
theme, or turning over the leaves of dictionaries
and grammars till they are dizzy, some indolent
fellow is following his own bent, talking all kinds
of nonsense, playing off hi jokes on everybody,
and trusting to his good fortune and address to
propitiate the master. Thirty years hence he is
likely enough to be a great man, and, in his way
a useful man, while his dutiful and plodding con-
temporaries are settling into obscurity and insigni-
ficance. It ought not to be, but it is so, and will
remain sa, as long as the art of speaking well is
utterly neglected in all its stages and applications,
and nothing is cared for but headwork and pen-
work, as applied to ancient languages and pure
ma hematics.