hunting. The moulds did not create the lead, they simply put
it into effective form. Jefferson was the greatest moulder of public
opinion in the early days of this country. He did not create Democratic
sentiment; he simply took the aspirations that had nestled in the
hearts of men from time immemorial and put them into appropriate and
epigrammatic language, so that the nation thought his thoughts after
him, as the world is now doing. The proverbs of Solomon are priceless
for the same reason; they are full of wisdom--wisdom so expressed that
it can be easily comprehended.

When I was a boy my father would call me in from work a little before
noon, read to me from Proverbs and comment on the sayings of the Wise
Man. After his death (when I was twenty) I recalled his fondness for
Proverbs and read the thirty-one chapters through each month for a year.
I was increasingly impressed with their beauty and strength. I have used
many of them in speeches. The one I have most frequently used in the
advocacy of reforms reads: "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth
himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished."

I have often used a story to illustrate how much can be said in a few
words. A man said to another, "Do you drink?" The man to whom the
question was addressed, replied rather indignantly, "That is my
business, sir." "Have you any other business?" asked the first man. The
story is not only valuable as an illustration of brevity but it has a
moral side; if a man drinks much he soon has no other business.

In this connection I will speak of the words to be employed. Our use of
big words increases from infancy to the day of graduation. I think it is
safe to say that with nearly all of us the maximum is reached on the day
when we leave school. We use more big words that day than we have
ever used before or will ever use again. When we go from college into
every-day life and begin to deal with our fellowmen we drop the big words
because we are more interested in making people understand us than we
are in parading our learning. The more earnest one is the smaller the
words used. If a young man used big words to assure his sweetheart of
his affection she would never understand him, but the word love has but
one syllable, just as the words life, faith, hope, home, food, and work
are one-syllable words. Remember that nearly every audience is made up
of people who differ in the amount of book learning they have received.
I