ly style and drawling utterance, and to aim at neatness, force,
and brevity. This may be done without formality, or stiffness, or
pedantic affectation; and when settled into a habit is invaluable.

2. In addition to this general cultivation, there should be frequent
exercise of the act of speaking. Practice is essential to perfection in
any art, and in none more so than in this. No man reads well or writes
well, except by long practice; and he cannot expect without it to speak
well, an operation which is equivalent to the other two united. He may
indeed get along, as the phrase is; but not so well as he might do and
should do. He may not always be able even to get along. He may be as
sadly discomfited as a friend of mine, who said that he had made the
attempt, and was convinced that for him to speak extempore was
impossible; he had risen from his study table, and tried to make a
speech, proving that virtue is better than vice; but was obliged to sit
down without completing it. How could one hope to do better in a first
attempt, if he had not considered beforehand what he should say? It were
as rational to think he could play on the organ without having learned,
or translate from a language he had never studied.

It would not be too much to require of the student, that he should
exercise himself every day, once at least, if not oftener; and this, on
a variety of subjects, and in various ways, that he may attain a
facility in every mode. It would be a pleasant interchange of employment
to rise from the subject which occupies his thoughts, or from the book
he is reading, and repeat to himself the substance of what he has just
perused, with such additions and variations, or criticisms, as may
suggest themselves at the moment. There could hardly be a more useful
exercise, even if there were no reference to this particular end. How
many excellent chapters of valuable authors, how many fine views of
important subjects, would be thus impressed upon his mind, and what rich
treasures of thought and language would be thus laid up in store. And
according as he should be engaged in a work of reasoning, or
description, or exhortation, or narrative, he would be attaining the
power of expressing himself readily in each of these various styles. By
pursuing this course for two or three years, "a man may render himself
such a master in this matter," says Burnet, "that he can never be
surprised;" and he adds, that he never knew a man faith