There is no class of people put to such a severe test of showing what
is in them as public speakers; no other men who run such a risk of
exposing their weak spots, or making fools of themselves in the
estimation of others, as do orators. Public speaking--thinking on
one's feet--is a powerful educator except to the thick-skinned man, the
man who has no sensitiveness, or who does not care for what others
think of him. Nothing else so thoroughly discloses a man's weaknesses
or shows up his limitations of thought, his poverty of speech, his
narrow vocabulary. Nothing else is such a touchstone of the character
and the extent of one's reading, the carefulness or carelessness of his
observation.

Close, compact statement must be had. Learn to stop when you get
through. Do not keep stringing out conversation or argument after you
have made your point. You only weaken your case and prejudice people
against you for your lack of tact, good judgment, or sense of
proportion. Do not neutralize all the good impression you have made by
talking on and on long after you have made your point.

The attempt to become a good public speaker is a great awakener of all
the mental faculties. The sense of power that comes from holding
attention, stirring the emotions or convincing the reason of an
audience, gives self-confidence, assurance, self-reliance, arouses
ambition, and tends to make one more effective in every particular.
One's manhood, character, learning, judgment of his opinions--all
things that go to make him what he is--are being unrolled like a
panorama. Every mental faculty is quickened, every power of thought
and expression spurred. Thoughts rush for utterance, words press for
choice. The speaker summons all his reserves of education, of
experience, of natural or acquired ability, and masses all his forces
in the endeavor to capture the approval and applause of the audience.

Such an effort takes hold of the entire nature, beads the brow, fires
the eye, flushes the cheek, and sends the blood surging through the
veins. Dormant impulses are stirred, half-forgotten memories revived,
the imagination quickened to see figures and similes that would never
come to calm thought.

This forced awakening of the whole personality has effects reaching
much further than the oratorical occasion. The effort to marshal all
one's reserves in a logical and orderly manner, to bring to the front
all the power one possesses, leaves thes