The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-29
WOMEN AND THE ART
 OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

stranser who had attended woman s club meeting remarked to memoer or the club that Its president spoke very ven; IT, nne club member, who did not speak at 1h "ell' replied. with sneer:
 i'Yes she ought to speak well. When she was elected president she went ana took a course of training in elocution. Would you think she was as vain and silly az that!
 well, I think it's a thousand pities more club women did not take elocution lessons; :, not bore us so with their shrill. squeaky paper reading. Notice now when the average woman has a speech to make. Ninety out of hun dred times she reads . paper instead of speak ing to her audience, which is a fatal blunder to begin. She has gloves on nearly always. too. SO tight that she hes no free motion of her hands. She holds her paper before her. pitch es her voice away up In her head then in shrin, jerky tones which can be heard no more than ten feet away proceeds to go me- chaniciy through the contents of that essay.
 If asked to speak louder she screams in a tone a little shriller, q lttle more heady. keeps it up a mute then her voice drops back again into the same nnonotonous squeak. like the sound of one single high note a hun dred times repeated upon piano. Mark Twain himself couldn't make an impression on an audience if he uttered his jokes In that man. ner."
 Just so. Mark Twain couldn't. No doubt the women who read papers in the piercing. jerky way have heard of the three kinds of tone of the human voice head tone, throat tone, chest tone They have also heard that every public speaker who knows his busine ss uses lnNaIlHOS CHoSt tOHe1 EnhhcS iiAS voice begin deep in his chest when he wishes it by what seems a contradiction to travel farthest. Invariably the carrying voice Is the one that issues from the chest. Try now to pronounce the word speak in the three ways. First make 1t issue from your mead with the thin, feeble sound many women employ in reading club papers.
 Next say speak with your throat tone
 The throat tone habitually used will speed- lily ruin any voice and produce chronic sore throat, yet 1t Is surprising how many Amer cans, even public speakers, employ this harsn' nasal throatY voice.
 Now utter the word speak with your tone pitched in your chest. Seer Your voice carries far; 1t sounds deep and musicaI. You can talk with ease for an hour or more py employing this strong. easy, pleasant cnest tone. A good way to acquire It ls 70 ieao aloud half an hour at a time several tiines a week One unaccustomed to reading aloud will fatigue herself in ten minutes oy speak ing in the squeaky head tone. 1T sne em- ploy the throat tone her voics VIII become nus ky and strained and her throat VII give ner painafter a few sentences only oy using tha even pleasant chest tone. with its falling infection and mucical lower pitcn' can she read on and on without fatigue or any spas rnodic ''catching'' in her throat. Here lie the secret and source of unfailing voice power. Make both source and secret your own.
 The practice of the chest tone will in itself have A calming steadying influence over many n ,ooor nervous, anxious "worrlted woman who has her little paper to read Tn the club or e report to make in O church society. The S.aorosn ,vho macs 1t nabitually in common con- ,ersation will feel an ever growing power with in her to impress her words upon others in public and in private ~.--. r,,,