rgue so logically, speak so
convincingly, that even when your side loses, your opponents will have
to admit that you forced them to do better than they had any idea they
could.

CHAPTER XIII

SPEAKING UPON SPECIAL OCCASIONS

Speech-making in the Professions. If a student enter a profession in
which speech-making is the regular means of gaining his livelihood--as
in law, religion, or lecturing--he will find it necessary to secure
training in the technical methods applying to the particular kind of
speech-making in which he will indulge. This book does not attempt to
prepare any one for mastery of such special forms. The student will,
however, be helping himself if he examines critically every delivery
of a legal argument, sermon, or lecture he hears, for many of the
rules illustrated by them and the impressions made by their speakers,
can be transferred as models to be imitated or specimens to be avoided
in his own more restricted and less important world.

Speaking upon Special Occasions. Every American may be called upon to
speak upon some special occasion. If he does well at his first
appearance he may be invited or required by circumstances to speak
upon many occasions. The person who can interest audiences by
effective delivery of suitable material fittingly adapted to the
particular occasion is always in demand. Within the narrower confines
of educational institutions the opportunities for the student to
appear before his schoolmates are as numerous as in real life. Some
preliminary knowledge coupled with much practice will produce deep
satisfaction upon successful achievement and result in rapid steps of
self-development.

Without pretending to provide for all possible circumstances in which
students and others may be called upon to speak, this chapter will
list some of the special occasions for which speeches should be
prepared.

Speeches of Presiding Officers. On practically all occasions there is
a presiding officer whose chief duty is to introduce to the audience
the various speakers. The one great fault of speeches of introduction
is that they are too long. The introducer sincerely means not to
consume too much time, but in the endeavor to do justice to the
occasion or the speaker he becomes involved in his remarks until they
wander far from his definite purpose. He wearies the audience before
the important speaker begins. An introducer should not become so
unconscious of his real task as to