hand, the course here to be chalked out assumes a considerable
proficiency in language or expression. The special education will
incidentally improve both these accomplishments, but must not be relied
on for creating them, or for causing a marked advance in either. The
effect to be looked for is rather to give them direction for the special
end.

[EXAMPLE FROM THE ART OF ORATORY.]

These things premised, the line of proceeding manifestly is to study the
choicest examples of the oratorical art, according to the methods
already laid down, with due adaptation to the peculiarities of the case.

Now, we have not, as in a Science, two or three systematic works, one of
which is to be chosen as a chief, to be followed by a reference more or
less to the others. Our material is a long series of detached orations;
from these we must make a selection at starting, and such selection,
which may comprise ten or twenty or more, will have to be treated with
the intense single-minded devotion that we hitherto limited to a single
work. Repeated perusal, with a process of abstracting to be described
presently, must be bestowed upon the chosen examples, before embarking,
as will be necessary, upon the wide field of miscellaneous oratory.

No doubt, an oratorical education could be grounded in a general and
equal study of the orators at large, taking the ancients either first or
last, according to fancy. Probably the greater number of students have
fallen into this apparently obvious course. Our present contention is,
that it is better to make a thorough study of a proper selection of the
greatest speeches, together with the most persuasive unspoken
compositions. This, however, is not all. We are following the wisdom of
the ancients, in insisting on the farther expedient of proceeding to the
study of the great examples by the aid of an oratorical scheme. At a
very early stage of Oratory in Greece, its methods began to be studied,
and, in the education of the orator, these methods were made to
accompany the study of exemplary speeches.

The principles of Rhetoric at large, and of the Persuasive art in
particular, have been elaborated by successive stages, and are now in a
tolerable state of advancement. The learner will choose the scheme that
is judged best, and will endeavour to master it provisionally, before
entering on the oratorical models; holding it open to amendment from
time to time, as his education goes on. The scheme and the