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Show . ! IT ISN'T DONE THAT WAY . By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK ; Dean of Men, University of Illinois ; I WAS turning rather carelessly i" through the pages of a magazine the other evening a very good maga- zinc, too, as publications go when my eye caught one of the advertisements. There was a page of It, a very ex ' pensive page, I am sure, and there was , the Illustration of a public speaker ' virile, magnetic, convincing holding . spellbound a great crowd that filled ' the street for a block or nvore on -each side of him. It was Inspiring and gave one a thrill to think of the possibilities pos-sibilities of such a thing. Reading the text, I leRrned that by sending for a free pamphlet the whole scheme would be explained in terms that the most simple-minded would clearly understand. By the expenditure expendi-ture of a small sum of money and a few minutes of time dally, one was assured as-sured that before he knew It he would be making after-dinner speeches that would be marvels of wit and wisdom, magnetizing his employers with his convincing arguments, and holding crowds through the power of his oratory, ora-tory, as It were, in the hollow of his hand. It Isn't done that way. One learns to speak successfully as he learns anything else. First by really having 1 something to say and then, unless he Is a genius, through long and severe practice. Speaking Is an art, one of ; the most difficult of arts, I believe, and art Is long, and few, very few, at- j tain to It. Demosthenes endured much : pain and spent many years In practice j before he became the great orator of j Greece. There were other advertisements In ; the magazine as alluring as that which 1 promised with little labor tremendous success In public speaking. There was. the one that promised In a few months to teach one to speak fluently any modern foreign language. The entire process was done by mall and the road j to linguistic success was guaranteed j to be easy. Now take French for illus- tratlon. I have studied French, rather seriously, too, two years of It for five hours a week, and I had a good teacher. teach-er. I have been In France several times, and I have been where they communicate with each other In French only. I have not found the road to French conversation easy ; I do not speak French fluently. In fact, I have sometimes been very seriously In doubt as to whether or not I speak It at all,. and there have been Frenchmen French-men who have listened to me who have been harrassed by the same doubts. I can read simple French, I can find my way about In Brittany through the 'medium of the native language, but as to learning fluency in a foreign language by mall In a fevf easy lessons, it Isn't done that way. One cannot become a great engineer by taking a correspondence course, nor learn all there is to architecture In a few easy lessons. Men do not have their salaries trebled by learning a few simple, tricks of personal approach. ap-proach. It isn't done that way. Success Suc-cess Is the result of long and serious practice and training. But as Barnum said Well, you know what he said. (, 1927. Western Newspaper Union.) |