anything to say." Everybody who writes or speaks to the public suffers from this thought before almost every piece of work. The editorial writer wonders every day how he will fill his alloted space with fresh and interesting comment on current events; the special writer worries about his page for the Sunday paper; the "colyumist" is driven to chronic melancholy in his efforts to give you a comic column every day. All spend their lives in the hunt for "copy," something to tell their public. The occasional writer and speaker must also learn to find copy, and he is usually more successful because he has more time for discovery and reflection-even though the daily worker often develops through his grind an astonishing resourcefulness and facility.

The Audience and the Purpose of Speaking. To be more definite, let your first inquiries concern your audience. Who are they? Why have they come together? How long do they expect you to speak? Who else is to speak? Who will introduce you? Visualize your audience. See yourself on the platform or at the table. Forecast conditions as accurately as possible. Forewarned is forearmed.

The Purpose of Speaking. If the meeting or dinner is to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary or a holiday, or has any definite purpose or business, your subject is clearly limited to what is appropriate for the particular discussion. As Professor Genung has said, you should seek the object before you choose the subject. If the object is to gather in praise of Washington, you won't regale the audience with an account of your trip to Madagascar. On the other hand, you have more latitude than you might expect, because the life of a national hero touches an audience at many points. The purpose of your listeners may be to honor the memory of Washington, but your own purpose or aim or end is to inform them about the life of Washington, or to impress them with his heroism or statesmanship or patience, or to convince them of the wisdom of his isolation policy, or to persuade them to think cheerfully about, and to work actively for, one's community or country, as Washington did, in spite of jealousy, stupidity and meanness.

By taking one point of view or another you are trying to make Washington vital to that audience, to link him in some way with

the business and desires of every man and woman present. You anticipate the indifferent (and most listeners are just that), or the cynical or dull by challenging their implied question: 66 What is there in all this for me?"

So your declared topic, "Washington," may be only a starting point for a very practical discussion of perplexing strikes or taxation or unemployment. It is best on these "harmony" occasions, however, to avoid anything that may arouse prejudice, rancor or strong opposition, because this would defeat your purpose of inspiring an audience to kindlier and more loyal activity through the contemplation of a noble career.

Choosing the Subject.-Perhaps you are more likely to talk at a dinner of your class, club or fellow-employees. Finding a subject is much the same problem in all of these. Entertainment and inspiration are your ends. Your subject may be the comic or the impressive review of the association's history. It may be a few suggested changes or additions to the club's program for the coming year. It may be a grievance, a problem, a solution, a plea for action on the part of the members to secure higher wages, or get more members. Your subject may be simply the telling of stories and reminiscences about popular members. Remember that brevity is a great virtue at dinners unless you are the speaker of the evening with a special topic. Then you may speak on any subject provided it isn't gloomy or acidly argumentative or technical, and provided you know enough about it to make it interesting. It may be "Railroad Rates," "The City Dock," "Mining in Mexico," "With Wrangel in Russia," or any other subject which you have experienced and have given study and reflection.

That good business man and speaker, Chauncey Depew, is well worth studying in regard to the choice of a subject. He has been a speaker at every conceivable kind of dinner or situation. He has talked to New England, Dutch and Irish societies, to the graduates of medical, religious and engineering schools, and to tramps. He has welcomed famous visitors, given loving cups, laid cornerstones and unveiled a statue of himself. In all this variety his formula is simple. He begins with a few words of greeting and understanding for the particular audience; he ! reviews briefly any stirring history that may be associated with

the occasion; he tells stories, not very often "funny" ones, but anecdotes, incidents, bits from the lives of famous persons or places; and he concludes with a word for the future, a congratulation or a paragraph that touches the good-will or generosity of the group. He never forgets the nature of his audience and he always looks for the story, the narrative.

Even though your talk is on the "Manufacture of Steel" or "The Law of the Logarithm," you can find its story or romance. Notice that the advertiser of breakfast foods, vacuum cleaners, watches, automobiles, insurance, paint, never resigns himself to the commonplace. He tries to glorify the dish-mop by building a drama of life about it-and he often succeeds. He finds the story. "Pause," he says, "and hear what happened." You listen, and that mop is ever after a bit more dignified than its fellows.

In class work you may choose any topic that you happen to hit upon-college athletics, the honor system, the World Court, compulsory arbitration, an article in a magazine or newspaper. On the other hand a whole book full of subjects and attractive titles may yield astonishingly few suggestions, because you have no background of reading or experience to provide the initial interest. Students often have little invention or resourcefulness in finding subjects because they have no fundamental interests. Their courses of study ought to furnish innumerable questions for discussion. History, science, economics, psychology, sociology, politics, business, art and literature bristle with live material of importance to everybody. If the student takes them as a necessary bore, matters of academic points (credit or failure that affect only the business of getting a degree) he naturally will see nothing in them for a speech.

But every young man has a lively interest in something or somebody. Current events, prominent writers or politicians, the latest popular book or play, the social life about him, experiences on the farm, "on the road" or in the factory, a vacation trip, what the college needs, are all subjects of attractive possibilities.

Out of the class room a speaker rarely has any trouble in finding a subject. Usually the occasion suggests at once the limited range of subjects that are appropriate. If there is nothing defi

nite in the occasion and one is asked to speak on "anything,' it is because he is or has been closely connected with the group he is to address, or because he has achieved success in some occupation. In the one case the subjects will be prompted by mutual experiences. Greeting, carefully selected reminiscence, changes, problems solved and still to be solved, tentative solutions, a bit of prophecy or warning, a closing word of good cheer, and the thing is done.

If you are invited to speak because you know something about marketing, manufacturing or anything else, you will naturally choose your subject from vital experience. Your real problem is that of selecting details that can be made important and stimulating to your audience.

As a rule, little reading is necessary for a particular speech. Details may be verified, a few sub-topics amplified, but the subject and content, to be successful, must be drawn from familiar, well-tested reading and experience of the past. A practical speech is always reminiscent, a part of your inner life, "where you live," not the result of a few days cramming.

Live Your Subject.-Phillips Brooks used to say he had only one sermon. He meant that he told over and over again the story of the better life, expounded it and tried to live it himself. There is one great secret of effective speech-making: Live your subject. Milton said a man cannot write a poem until he lives a poem. You must experience your subject as one is said to experience" religion. You don't "know" it until you "realize" it, until it is real to you through vivid thinking, contact and, familiarity. You cannot talk authoritatively or convincingly about life in the trenches unless you have lived it, or about what the workingman wants unless you are one or have been one and can recall the experience with sympathetic imagination. This does not mean that you cannot talk about Napoleon or Lincoln because you did not meet them in person. It means that you can talk about them only when your reading has so interested you that you recreate them and live with them in the camp, in the council-room, in the home, in temptation, in despair, in weakness, triumph or defeat.

Making a Subject Appropriate.-It is not the subject, but the failure to adapt it to the audience that accounts for so much poor

speaking. A banker may talk well about investments, taxes, or foreign trade, but he cannot give the same speech to high school pupils, farmers, mechanics and manufacturers. The groups differ greatly from one another in experience and interests. "Foreign trade" is a good subject for all of them, but all ask for different pictures. A different set of questions and answers must be drawn up for each. The boy is interested in the romance, the adventure of the business, and sees in it opportunities for good jobs. The speaker must answer his eager inquiries. The farmer looks for a chance to sell his surplus wheat and corn. The mechanic asks whether there is an outlet for over-production in typewriters or automobiles. He is always interested in details that insure plenty of work at good wages. The manufacturer is puzzled by the complexities of introducing his product to a foreign people. He wants to know about agents, advertising mediums, competition, costs of transportation, tariffs, packing, and the like.

It seems obvious to say that the talk for manufacturers will not "go" as well before farmers or high school boys, but that is the kind of blunder often made by speakers. They are aiming at no one in particular and their random shots fail to strike the interest of their listeners.

But this is not the worst fault. Many speakers apparently have no faith at all in human intelligence. They dislike to give their audiences credit for knowing anything. A college student will vigorously announce that "this college needs a new athletic field" and will put his audience to sleep with the dull recital of matter that has been stale campus talk for years. His proper theme, where to find a suitable and available location, and how to raise the funds for the project, he never mentions.

How many times does one hear from the platform that American business men do not pack goods properly for South Americans, that the English and Germans study their customers, etc.? We could stand the tiresome "news" if it were accompanied by a few illustrations, a few good stories that would dramatically decorate the old legend. But the alert speaker knows it is better to omit this generality or to show that it is exaggerated by referring to conspicuous successes in meeting the requirements of the trade.