The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-05-07
WAS CICERO RIGHT?
Must Orators Be Models of Physical
Perfections
Talks with School Boys on Oratory-By
Professor Brainard G. Smith, Corr
nell University.
Copyright, 1893, by B. G. Smith. |

On the evening of Dec. %. 1879, Mr..
George Augustus Sala,. the famous Eng
| lish newspaper correspondent, was a
guest OF the New England society of New
York city, at its great annual banquet.
Sala was that night a fortunate man, for
he heard speeches from some Of America
best public speakers, George William
Curtis, the Rev. Dr. Storrs, General
Horace Porter, Chauncey M. Depew,
General Sherman, the Rev. DIR. Bellows
and Joseph II. Choate.
AMERICA A LAND OF PUBLIC SPEAKERS.
When Mr. Sala was called upon to re-
spond to the toast sold England-the
Worthy Mother OF New England, in Let
tiers as Well as in Laws he said, with
good Judgment, as well SIS courtesy:
sit is with great profit to myself that
have been guest at this table, for
assure you that by listening to the mag
nificent display of oratory which we have
had have derived more instruction and
Information, which hope to lock up in
a tolerably retentive memory, than
could have derived from the perusal of
many closely printed octave volumes.
~ cannot hope for one moment to
in the discourse of Mr.. Curtis; cannot
| hope to approximate the sound and lively
| sense OF the speech OF Mr.. Depew; nor
can hope to kindle your sympathies by
phrases such as those which fell from the
lips OF your illustrious captain, the gen.
eral of your armies-Sherman.
81 honestly confess that this evening 1
feel very diffident. We English are not a
public-s speaking people. although we are
always talking in public. Few of us have
mastered the art of oratory, and am not
paying you an empty compliment when
say that if the Americans be not born
| public speakers, they seem to draw the
art of speaking from their mothers
| breasts.
''And many various circumstances here
conduce to the early development of one
of the most difficult arts | know. Your
wonderful common school system, with
its Rotations; your extraordinary system
| OF government which brings your men
into public life years before Englishmen
dream of acting in a public capacity
! these things accustom you thoroughly to
public Oratory.
| There is deal of truth in what Mr..
Sala said abont our being nation OF
speech makers.
| Wendell Phillips put the same thought
into different form when he said that as
soon as the Yankee baby could sit up IN
his cradle he called the nursery to order
and proceeded to address the house.
oRAToRIcAL AMBITION AT SCHOOL.
suppose all boys desire very much to
become public speakers, but am quite
certain that great many young men are
quite certain that they never can be good
speakers.
| have before me every year young men
who come to my classes in Cornell uni
versiJy simply that they may learn some
thing of the art OF oratory. and who
would give almost anything if l would
excuse them from making speeches in
public, or even before their classmates.
Then there is another class who are
quite confident that they are already good
speakers and who are inclined to resent
criticism.
| Between the two classes are those who
want to learn to speak, are bound to learn
to speak, are willing and anxious to be
criticised, and have the will power to
overcome that timidity which makes
| speaking in public seem a hard thing to
do.
daresay am writing here for each of
| these three classes; for young men who
are in school and college and university
receiving some instruction in what Mr..
Curtis called the "nobie art of oratory. -
| 1t is noble art, a noble and ancient
art, an art that is likely to exist as long
as men exist, and there are evils to be at
tackled, wrongs to be rlghted, baseness to
be exposed, virtues TO be exalted and ma
tions to be defended.
1t has often been said that "the poet Is
born but the orator is made.
The truth is that the poetical Instinct