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The Art Of Public Speaking
Dale
Carnegie & Esenwein
Training in public
speaking is not a matter of externals - primarily; it is
not a matter of imitation - fundamentally; it is not a
matter of conformity to standards at all. Public
speaking is public utterance, public issuance, of the
man himself; therefore the first thing both in time and
in importance is that the man should be and think and
feel things that are worthy of being given forth. Unless
there be something of value within, no tricks of
training can ever make of the talker anything more than
a machine - albeit a highly perfected machine - for the
delivery of other men's goods. So self-development is
fundamental in our plan.
The second principle lies
close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to
rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his
physical powers, so that the outer self may give
perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is
futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for
voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless
these two principles of having something to say and
making the will sovereign have at least begun to make
themselves felt in the life.
The third principle will,
we surmise, arouse no dispute: No one can learn how to
speak who does not first speak as best he can. That may
seem like a vicious circle in statement, but it will
bear examination.
Many teachers have begun
with the how. Vain effort! It is an ancient truism that
we learn to do by doing. The first thing for the
beginner in public speaking is to speak - not to study
voice and gesture and the rest. Once he has spoken he
can improve himself by self-observation or according to
the criticisms of those who hear.
But how shall he be able
to criticise himself? Simply by finding out three
things: What are the qualities which by common consent
go to make up an effective speaker; by what means at
least some of these qualities may be acquired; and what
wrong habits of speech in himself work against his
acquiring and using the qualities which he finds to be
good.
Experience then, is not
only the best teacher, but the first and the last. But
experience must be a dual thing - the experience of
others must be used to supplement, correct and justify
our own experience; in this way we shall become our own
best critics only after we have trained ourselves in
self-knowledge, the knowledge of what other minds think,
and in the ability to judge ourselves by the standards
we have come to believe are right. "If I ought," said
Kant, "I can."
An examination of the
contents of this volume will show how consistently these
articles of faith have been declared, expounded, and
illustrated. The student is urged to begin to speak at
once of what he knows. Then he is given simple
suggestions for self-control, with gradually increasing
emphasis upon the power of the inner man over the outer.
Next, the way to the rich storehouses of material is
pointed out. And finally, all the while he is urged to
speak, speak, SPEAK as he is applying to his own
methods, in his own personal way, the principles he has
gathered from his own experience and observation and the
recorded experiences of others.
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