beauty, and utility. We furnish a particular room in a tone
that will be restful and pleasing to the occupant. We choose every piece
of furniture, rug, picture, and drapery with a distinct purpose in view
of what the total effect will be.

So with a well-furnished mind. We must choose the kind of material we
intend to keep there. It should be chosen with a view to its beauty,
power, and usefulness. We want no rubbish there. We want the best
material available. Hence the vital importance of going to the right
sources for the furniture of our mind, to the great books of the world,
to living authorities, to nature, to music, to art, to the best wherever
it may be found.

The second essential of an effective public speech is knowing how to say
it. This implies a thorough training in the technique of speech. There
should be a well-cultivated voice, of adequate volume, brilliancy, and
carrying quality. There should be ample training in articulation,
pronunciation, expression, and gesture. These so-called mechanics should
be developed until they become an unconscious part of the speaker's
style.

Your best opportunity for practice is in your everyday conversation.
There you are constantly making speeches on a small scale. Public
speaking of the best modern type is simply elevated conversation. I do
not mean elevated in pitch, but in the sense of being launched upon a
higher level of thought and with greater intensity than is usually
called for by ordinary conversation.

In conversation you have your best opportunity for developing your
public speaking style. Indeed, you are there, despite yourself, forming
habits which will disclose themselves in your public speaking. As you
speak in your daily conversation you will largely speak when you stand
before an audience.

You will therefore see the importance of care in your daily speech.
There should be a fastidious choice of words, care in pronunciation and
articulation, and the mouth well opened so that the words may come out
wholly through the mouth and not partly through the nose. Culture of
conversation is to be recommended for its own sake, since everyone must
speak in private if not in public.

One of the best plans for self-culture in speaking is to read aloud for
a few minutes every day from a book of well-selected speeches. There are
numerous compilations of the kind admirably suited to this purpose. The
important thing here is to read in speaking style, not in what