bled," a place where the finished machine is "set up,' or put together. Very similar to the function of this room in the factory, is the function of the Public Speaking department in the high school or college. The Public Speaking department, like the assembling room of the factory, is the final test of all attainment in other departments. If a student is poor in his mathematics, the fact will be evident in his public speaking. If he is poor in his rhetoric, or languages, the fact will likewise be apparent. Just as the assembling room determines the precision with which each thread is cut, and each bolt turned, so the Public Speaking department is the test of the excellence of the student in his Milton, his Euclid, or his Goethe.

With this comparison in mind, it is evident that the teacher of Public Speaking must be an expert. It is not in the screw department, or the type-bar department, of a typewriter factory that the skilled workmen are found, but in the assembling room. Here the mechanic must know not merely how to judge of the excellence of one part of the machine. He must be able to judge all parts. So in Public Speaking the teacher must be able to detect failure to attain the standard in any one of the many departments of knowledge, and just as the skilled mechanic in the assembling room will improve the product of each department as he brings the whole machine to perfection, so the teacher of Public Speaking will improve the work in other departments as he points out the need of further attainment on the part of his students. in their different lines of work. It is necessary that we have good instruction in all departments, but just as the different parts of a mowing machine are of little value when lying around on the floor of the assembling room separately, but become valuable only when they are put together in the machine, so, although we need good instruc

tion in the different subjects, the value of this instruction is greatly enhanced by a good department of Public Speaking, where expression, and therefore usefulness, can be supplied.

This brings us to the subject of contests. No more powerful stimulus has ever been found for the acquirement of knowledge in all departments than the Public Speaking Contest. Its power is not confined to the subject of elocution alone, but reaches out into every subject of the curriculum. The student finding the terrible void in his work under the criticism of a broad-minded teacher of Public Speaking, goes to his special department with a voracity of appetite before entirely unknown both to himself and his teacher. His mind is like a great iron bar swung over the iron filings passed over them without perceptible effect, now, under the influence of the mystic currents of emulation, it grapples them to itself with irresistible force.

This is a view of the contest in its wider salutary influence. For the teacher of elocution its effects are marked with equal clearness. There is a psychological moment in all mental achievement. There is a time when the ideas already in the mind, under the white heat of interest fuse with new ideas with the utmost facility, and this white heat of interest can be created in no easier way than by the Public Speaking Contest. Students who have looked upon technical exactness with undisguised contempt, now are solicitous about every minute detail. Students who have shamefully neglected practice, now cause the household attic to resound with Demosthenic utterance. In this connection it should be stated that the contest work should be closely correlated with the class work. For weeks preceding the contest the matter should be mentioned at every meeting of the class. The points of excellence that will characterize

the winning contestant should be pointed out. You may say to the class: "Watch the winning contestant two weeks from tonight, and see if he does not have such characteristics." This will have the effect of fastening these characteristics in the minds of your class, and will incidentally increase the interest in the contest. Nor should this work stop with the contest. Nearly always at Akron we devote the first class hour following the contest to hearing opinions of the different contestants and discussing the decisions. Talking about the contest both before and after the event is surely one of the best ways to make it effective.

In addition to the talk about the contest in the class room, the teacher should ever be on the alert to drop a word about it wherever possible, on the stairs, in the hall, on the street. Approach the boy who is writing a speech and ask him how he is getting along with his oration. Tell him you believe he can give the rest of the fellows a pretty close race. After telling a certain contestant that he never can win unless he pays more attention to his gestures, stop him a day or two afterward and ask him what exercises he is practicing. Speak to someone outside of the contestants and ask him how many are entering from his class. Name some good fellow who ought to enter and tell him to go in. Send two or three other fellows around to see him. Honeycomb the school with contest spirit and the result will be gratifying.

One other device should be mentioned here. Keep the honors as close as possible to every student. Make almost as much of the man who wins in the room or society as the man who finally wins for the school. Impress upon the members of each society that it is something to win in that society. Keep the honors close to the mass of the students and do not let those who lose out on the way up to the summit of the pryamid system be forgot

ten. When Yale University reports only about a half dozen men as entering for four honor places, surely some such policy as this has been neglected. At Akron this last year, out of an enrollment of 848 there were an even 300 entries.

But the interest aroused is not the only advantage of the contest. The contestant, after once having done his best, will never afterward be content with mediocrity. The boy who in his junior year has won a contest will not be content with anything but like preparation for his valedictory at commencement. It is said that certain wild beasts are perfectly harmless until they have once tasted human gore. So the student, after once feeling the satisfaction of a good speech will never again be contented with inferior work. His abilities have been "stretched," as it were, and he is never quite the same individual again. The orator who has once stood before an intent body of listeners, who has been greeted with spontaneous applause, who has felt the warm tingle in his cheek, and the beating pulses of triumph at his neck, will always have these experiences singing their way through all his work, and mere talking will seem very "stale, flat, and unprofitable."

But greater than the good gained from added interest, and the advantage of permanent improvement on the part of the student, is the patriotic impulse inspired by the contest. Lord Macaulay, I think it was, who said that government by parliament was a government by talking. The same could be said about our own republican institutions, the protection of our government is largely secured by talking. The last year in one school nine medals were given to young men for excellence in Public Speaking. Think of the influence for good that these young men will exert! Through all their lives these young men who wear these medals will be interested in Public

Speaking. Many public addresses will be eagerly read, and many more eagerly listened to, because of the interest by that medal, won away back in high school days. Most public addresses deal with the welfare of the country, and these men cannot help becoming interested. More than this, the probability is that they will never entirely abandon the joys of public address themselves, and in any crisis, by reason of their knowledge of affairs, gained by reading these many speeches, and by reason of their training in the art of public address, they will stand forth as staunch defenders of that liberty which we all enjoy. Think how safe our government would be, if every high school in the land would each year turn out nine young men with an abiding interest in Public Speaking.

What has been said thus far is true of the contest in general, but the subject assigned, "Contests in Declamation and Oratory," suggests that there/ may be some discussion as to the relative merit of the declamation and oration in the contest. I believe it is generally conceded that declamation is the proper field for the younger students. The technique of Public Speaking should be begun at a date so early that the mind is unable to cope with the difficulties found in composing an oration, and the declamation furnishes the needed resource. Not before the third year of the high school, at least, should the oration be regularly attempted, although I have known of members of the sophomore class doing remarkable work. The oration, I believe, is capable of the highest development of any form of public utterance in the high school. Declamation can never be considered more than an academic exercise, and literary interpretation needs the fuller experience of later life to make it effective. Debate requires impromptu thinking and judgment, which are not possible to the high