Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/25

 6 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS for entertainment merely. So far from that, they are serious and solid. Of course formal speech must entertain in the sense of arousing, sustaining, and satisfying interest; but it must do vastly more : it must appeal for action and yield ac- tion, although the action be no more than is involved in chang- ing a mental attitude. These speeches, then, are to be prepared, not for private reading, but for public hearing : they are to be carefully con- structed and written, not for the purpose of being something, but for the purpose of actually doing something. All serious speech-making must have as an object action on the part of the hearer. Three of the limitations attending the composition of formal public address should be kept in mind : First, while it must gather about facts, oral discourse must contain more than facts. The sketches in this volume consist largely of facts, and intentionally so : 3. Limitations but merely to recite them to any great MAKING NECESSABY cxteut iu public spcech would deprive THE THEME the speaker and audience of the larger purposes and profits involved. These mere details for the most part are remote and of little signifi- cance relatively to the hearer. The important business for the speaker is to dig beneath and to peer behind these facts and to discover their reason, their explanation. To be told that a man achieved certain things through courage in time of great stress is interesting: but far more important is it to be informed as to the cause behind that courage. Putting the matter another way, these facts concerning famous living Americans largely pertain to the past. The speaker must give them a vital meaning for the present and the future. The worth of these biographical addresses under consideration must be meas- ured, indeed, by the interpretation of facts into thought and action for the hearer. The speaker does not, then, ignore facts ; but he states them briefly or else assumes that they are known. His task is rather to show an eternal principle as a dominating, guiding force and to make clear the obligation of the hearer as to that principle.