he homely adage--think before
you speak. If there were more thinking there would be at once better
speaking. Anybody can talk. The purpose of studying is to make one a
better speaker. The anticipation of some relief may be entertained,
for it is comforting to know that after one has followed the processes
here explained, they move more rapidly, so that after a time they may
become almost simultaneous up to the completion of the one just
discussed--planning the speech. It is also worth knowing that none of
this preliminary work is actually lost. Nor is it unseen. It appears
in the speech itself. The reward for all its apparent slowness and
exacting deliberation is in the clearness, the significance of the
speech, its reception by the audience, its effect upon them, and the
knowledge by the speaker himself that his efforts are producing
results in his accomplishments.

All speakers plan carefully for speeches long in advance.

A famous alumnus of Yale was invited to attend a banquet of Harvard
graduates. Warned that he must "speak for his dinner" he prepared more
than a dozen possible beginnings not knowing of course, in what manner
the toastmaster would call upon him. The remainder of his speech was
as carefully planned, although not with so many possible choices. Note
that from each possible opening to the body of the speech he had to
evolve a graceful transition.

Edmund Burke, in his great speech on conciliation with the American
colonies, related that some time before, a friend had urged him to
speak upon this matter, but he had hesitated. True, he had gone so far
as to throw "my thoughts into a sort of parliamentary form"--that is,
he made a plan or an outline, but the passage of a certain bill by the
House of Commons seemed to have taken away forever the chance of his
using the material. The bill, however, was returned from the House of
Lords with an amendment and in the resulting debate he delivered the
speech he had already planned.

Daniel Webster said that his reply to Hayne had been lying in his desk
for months already planned, merely waiting the opportunity or need for
its delivery.

Henry Ward Beecher, whose need for preliminary preparation was reduced
to its lowest terms, and who himself was almost an instantaneous
extemporizer, recognized the need for careful planning by young
speakers and warned them against "the temptation to slovenliness in
workmanship, to careless and inaccurate statement, to rep