ps. They
strengthened their voices. They learned how to prepare and arrange
material. They made themselves able to explain topics to others. They
knew so well the reasons for their own belief that they could convince
others.

In a smaller way, to a lesser degree, any person can do the same
thing, and by the same or similar methods. Barring some people who
have physical defects or nervous diseases, any person who has enough
brains to grasp an idea, to form an opinion, or to produce a thought,
can be made to speak well. The preceding sentence says "barring some
people who have physical defects" because not all so handicapped at
the beginning need despair of learning to improve in speaking ability.
By systems in which the results appear almost miraculous the dumb are
now taught to speak. Stutterers and stammerers become excellent
deliverers of speeches in public. Weak voices are strengthened.
Hesitant expressions are made coherent. Such marvels of modern science
belong, however, to special classes and institutions. They are cited
here to prove that in language training today practically nothing is
impossible to the teacher with knowledge and patience in educating
students with alertness and persistence.

Practical Help. This book attempts to provide a guide for such
teachers and students. It aims to be eminently practical. It is
intended to help students to improve in speech. It assumes that those
who use it are able to speak their language with some facility--at
least they can pronounce its usual words. That and the realization
that one is alive, as indicated by a mental openness to ideas and an
intellectual alertness about most things in the universe, are all that
are absolutely required of a beginner who tries to improve in
speaking. Practically all else can be added unto him.

As this volume has a definite aim it has a simple practical basis. It
will not soar too far above the essentials. It tries not to offer an
elaborate explanation of an enthymeme when the embryonic speaker's
knees are knocking together so loudly that he can not hear the
instructor's correcting pronunciation of the name. It takes into
account that when a beginner stands before an audience--and this is
true not only the first time--even his body is not under his control.
Lips grow cold and dry; perspiration gushes from every pore of the
brow and runs down the face; legs grow weak; eyes see nothing; hands
swell to enormous proportions; violent pai