first ten or fifteen minutes, as a
matter of course.

If his auditors are strange, they get restless and disgusted, and some
of them go out. If they know him, they smile at one another and the
ceiling and wait with more or less patience until he "gets started." If
it is a meeting where others are to speak, by the time he "gets started"
the chairman is anxiously looking at his watch and wondering if he will
have as much trouble to "get done."

A lecturer should remember that an audience resents having its time
wasted by a long, floundering, meaningless preamble, and it is sure to
get even. Next time it will come late to avoid that preliminary "catch
as catch can" performance or--it will stay away.

CHAPTER IV

SPEAK DELIBERATELY

William Ewart Gladstone, one of the most generally admired orators the
English house of commons ever listened to, spoke at an average of 100
words a minute. Phillips Brooks, the brilliant American preacher,
maintained a rate of 215 words a minute and was a terror to the
stenographers engaged to report him.

He succeeded as a speaker, not because of his speed, but in spite of it;
because his enunciation was perfect and every word was cut off clear and
distinct. But very few men succeed with such a handicap, and Brooks
would have done much better if he could have reduced his speed 40 per
cent.

The average person in an audience thinks slowly, and the lecturer should
aim to meet the requirements of at least a large majority of those
present, and not merely those in the assembly who happen to be as well
informed as the lecturer, and could therefore keep pace with him, no
matter how rapidly he proceeds. New ideas need to be weighed as well as
heard, and the power of weighing is less rapid than the sense of
hearing. This is why a pause at the proper place is so helpful.

A young lecturer had in his audience on one occasion a veteran of the
platform, and was on that account anxious to do his best. This
situation, as all new speakers know, is very disconcerting, and after
the young aspirant had rushed through his opening argument pretty well,
as he thought, lo, his memory slipped a cog and he waited in silence,
what seemed to him an age, until it caught again. Then he continued to
the end without a stop. After the meeting the veteran came forward to
shake hands. "Have you any advice for me?" said the young man, that
awful breakdown looming large in his mind.

"Yes," said the senior,