ssion of human achievement. Young people, no matter what they
intend to be, whether blacksmith or farmer, merchant or physician,
should make it a study.

Nothing else will call out what is in a man so quickly and so
effectively as the constant effort to do his best in speaking before an
audience. When one undertakes to think on his feet and speak
extemporaneously before the public, the power and the skill of the
entire man are put to a severe test.

The writer has the advantage of being able to wait for his moods. He
can write when he feels like it; and he knows that he can burn his
manuscript again and again if it does not suit him. There are not a
thousand eyes upon him. He does not have a great audience criticizing
every sentence, weighing every thought. He does not have to step upon
the scales of every listener's judgment to be weighed, as does the
orator. A man may write as listlessly as he pleases, use much or
little of his brain or energy, just as he chooses or feels like doing.
No one is watching him. His pride and vanity are not touched, and what
he writes may never be seen by anyone. Then, there is always a chance
for revision. In conversation, we do not feel that so much depends
upon our words; only a few persons hear them, and perhaps no one will
ever think of them again. In music, whether vocal or instrumental,
what one gives out is only partially one's own; the rest is the
composer's.

Yet anyone who lays any claim to culture, should train himself to think
on his feet, so that he can at a moment's notice rise and express
himself intelligently. The occasions for little speaking are
increasing enormously. A great many questions which used to be settled
in the office are now discussed and settled at dinners. All sorts of
business deals are now carried through at dinners. There was never
before any such demand for dinner oratory as to-day.

We know men who have, by the dint of hard work and persistent grit,
lifted themselves into positions of prominence, and yet they are not
able to stand on their feet in public, even to make a few remarks, or
scarcely to put a motion without trembling like an aspen leaf. They
had plenty of opportunities when they were young, at school, in
debating clubs to get rid of their self-consciousness and to acquire
ease and facility in public speaking, but they always shrank from every
opportunity, because they were timid, or felt that somebody else could
handle t