people
to say any more. Phocion drew back altogether, struck dumb, and would
not speak another word to any man; and he left it to them to decide in
any way they liked.

It appears to me there is a kind of eloquence in that which is equal
to anything Demosthenes ever said--"Take your own way, and let me out
altogether." (Applause.)

All these considerations, and manifold more connected with
them--innumerable considerations, resulting from observation of the
world at this moment--have led many people to doubt of the salutary
effect of vocal education altogether. I do not mean to say it should
be entirely excluded; but I look to something that will take hold
of the matter much more closely, and not allow it slip out of our
fingers, and remain worse than it was. For if a good speaker--an
eloquent speaker--is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid
kind of object in creation? (Loud cheers.) Of such speech I hear all
manner and kind of people say it is excellent; but I care very little
about how he said it, provided I understand it, and it be true.
Excellent speaker! but what if he is telling me things that are
untrue, that are not the fact about it--if he has formed a wrong
judgment about it--if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right
conclusion in regard to the matter? An excellent speaker of that kind
is, as it were, saying--"Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded
of the thing that is not true, come hither." (Great laughter and
applause.) I would recommend you to be very chary of that kind of
excellent speech. (Renewed laughter.)

Well, all that being the too well-known product of our method of vocal
education--the mouth merely operating on the tongue of the pupil, and
teaching him to wag it in a particular way (laughter)--it had made a
great many thinking men entertain a very great distrust of this not
very salutary way of procedure, and they have longed for some kind of
practical way of working out the business. There would be room for
a great deal of description about it if I went into it; but I must
content myself with saying that the most remarkable piece of reading
that you may be recommended to take and try if you can study is a book
by Goethe--one of his last books, which he wrote when he was an old
man, about seventy years of age--I think one of the most beautiful
he ever wrote, full of mild wisdom, and which is found to be very
touching by those who have eyes to discern and hearts to feel it.