Evening star., 1914-12-06

ready beginning to be large
university. So he chose as
his topic ~Twenty Years
Changes at Columbia" Thus he had something he
wanted to say to his fellow alumni and that they wanted
to hear from him. AS result his brief speech was
received with high approval.
In consequence of this he was asked to go as the
Columbia representative to the Harvard dinner week
two later; and, misled by his the Columbia
dinner he rashy accepted. But the conditions were
wholly different He had nothing he wanted say to
the Harvard alumni, and although they gave him po
lite attention they had desire to hear anything
from him. To make matters worse, if possible he
spoke just after Bishop Phillips Brooks and just before
the captain of the successful Harvard football team
And his failure this occasion as obvious and as
complete had been his at the previous din
He took the lesson heart and has refraned
from making any address when he did not feel quite
that he had something he wanted to say to the
special audience that the special audience would
want to hear.
When the suggestion is made that a speech will be
interesting and effective only when the special audi
to hear it, this does not mean that what is
said may not be unwelcome to that audience There
is need to latter the listeners; fact they
this it is too obvious, and they relish plain speaking
if the speaker treads their At this very
Harvard dinner Bishop Brooks had come purpose
tell the Harvard graduates unpaatabe truths about
recent happenings at their and his Alma Mater; and
coming from him. whom they all revered, these home
truths gladly received, though they hurt
An intelligent audience always respects speaker with
the courage of his convictions.
THE French dramatist Legouve once lecturing
at the Sorbonne, and he mentioned the indisput-
able fact that young girls coming up Paris
times betrayed "by officers the army and by students
in the university" At these last words there
violent Kisses from the many undergraduates who had
come to hear the lecture. Legouve waited till the
turult had died down. and then he repeated his
tence, saying that these girls sometimes betrayed
by officers, but often by students" There
moments silence, followed by outbreak of applause
in which even the undergraduates joined.
This French audience wanted to hear Legouve. AS
the bridegroom said when the minister asked him if
would take this to be his welded wife, "Why,
purpose Lsgouve well known figure
in Partisan society, and he polished speaker
always carefully prepared talk the attractive
Here where celebrity of any kind has an indisput-
able advantage-n that he make of his well
come A less well known must begin cautiously;
he must introduce himself to speak, and he cannot
begin by chatting his listeners. And yet, if he has
tact and good temper, he make sly thrss at his
audience without his listeners resenting it. Indeed if
only he do this cleverly enough, his listeners will
have hesitation in laughing at themselves.
Just before the opening of the Chicago Exposition
of 1893 the artists and of letters of New York
gave dinner to the men who engaged in making
that exposition vision of beauty,-to the architects
the sculptors, and the mural painters. A deega-
ton from Chicago invited to be present; and it
one of these Chicago men, lawyer named Norton,
absolutely unknown to the immense majority of the
diners who made the most successful speech of the
evenngin spite of the fact that he devoted himself
playful satire New York, which had allowed Chi
cago to capture the exhibition.
His speech was very witty; but it also in