Chapter XVIII: Section I

_On the Speaking of Speeches at Schools_.

Elocution has, for some years past, been an object of attention in the most respectable schools in this country. A laudable ambition of instructing youth in the pronunciation and delivery of their native language, has made English speeches a very conspicuous part of those exhibitions of oratory which do them so much credit.

This attention to English pronunciation has induced several ingenious men to compile Exercises in Elocution for the use of schools, which have answered very useful purposes; but none, so far as I have seen, have attempted to give us a regular system of gesture suited to the wants and capacities of school-boys. Mr. Burgh, in his Art of Speaking, has given us a system of the passions, and has shewn us how they appear in the countenance, and operate on the body; but this system, however useful to people of riper years, is too delicate and complicated to be taught in schools. Indeed, the exact adaptation of the action to the word, and the word to the action, as Shakespear calls it, is the most difficult part of delivery, and therefore can never be taught perfectly to children; to say nothing of distracting their attention with two difficult things at the same time. But that boys should stand motionless, while they are pronouncing the most impassioned language, is extremely absurd and unnatural; and that they should sprawl into an aukward, ungain, and desultory action, is still more offensive and disgusting. What then remains, but that such a general style of action be adopted, as shall be easily conceived and easily executed, which, though not expressive of any particular passion, shall not be inconsistent with the expression of any passion; which shall always keep the body in a graceful position, and shall so vary its motions; at proper intervals, as to seem the subject operating on the speaker, and not the speaker on the subject. This, it will be confessed, is a great desideratum; and an attempt to do this, is the principal object of the present publication.

The difficulty of describing action by words, will be allowed by every one; and if we were never to give any instructions but such as should completely answer our wishes, this difficulty would be a good reason for not attempting to give any description of it. But there are many degrees between conveying a precise idea of a thing, and no idea at all. Besides, in this part of delivery, instruction may be conveyed by the eye; and this organ is a much more rapid vehicle of knowledge than the ear. This vehicle is addressed on the present, occasion, and plates, representing the attitudes which are described, are annexed to the several descriptions, which it is not doubted will greatly facilitate the reader's conception.

The first plate represents the attitude in which a boy should always place himself when he begins to speak. He should rest the whole weight of his body on the right leg; the other, just touching the ground, at the distance at which it would naturally fall, if lifted up to shew that the body does not bear upon it. The knees should be strait and braced, and the body, though perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the arm in its true position forms the diagonal of such an imaginary figure. So that, if lines were drawn at right angles from the shoulder, extending downwards, forwards, and sideways, the arm will form a& angle of forty-five degrees every way.

When the pupil has pronounced one sentence in the position thus described, the hand, as if lifeless, must drop down to the side, the very moment the last accepted word is pronounced; and the body, without altering the place of the feet, poise itself on the left leg, while the left hand rises itself into exactly the same position as the right was before, and continues in this position till tine end of the next sentence, when it drops down on the side, as if dead; and the body poizing itself on the right leg as before, continues with the right arm extended, till the end of the succeeding sentence, and so on from right to left, and from left to right alternately, till the speech is ended.

Great care must he taken that the pupil end one sentence completely, before he begin another. He must let the arm drop to the side, and continue for a moment in that posture in which he concluded, before he poizes his body on the other leg, and raises the other arm into the diagonal position before described; both which should be done before he begins to pronounce the next sentence. Care must also he taken in shifting the body from one leg to the other, that the feet do not alter their distance. In altering the position of the body, the feet will necessarily alter their position a little; but this change must be made by turning the toes in a somewhat different direction, without suffering them to shift their ground. The heels, in this transition, change their place, but not the toes. The toes may be considered as pivots, on which the body turns from side to side.

If the pupil's knees are not well formed, or incline inwards, he must be taught to keep his legs at as great a distance as possible, and to incline his body so much to that side, on which the arm is extended, as to oblige him to rest the opposite leg upon the toe; and this will, in a great measure, hide the defect of his make. In the same manner, if the arm be too long, or the elbow incline inwards, it will be proper to make him turn the palm of his hand downwards, so as to make it perfectly horizontal. This will infallibly incline the elbow outwards, and prevent the worst position the arm can possibly fall into, which is that of inclining the elbow to the body. This position of the hand so necessarily keeps the elbow out, that it would not be improper to make the pupil sometimes practice it, though he may have no defect in his make; as an occasional alteration of the former position to this, may often be necessary both for the sake of justness and variety. These two last positions of the legs and arms, are described in plate second.

When the pupil has got the habit of holding his hand and arm properly, he may be taught to move it. In this motion he must be careful to keep the arm from the body. He must neither draw the elbow backwards, nor suffer it to approach to the side, bur, while the hand and lower joint of the arm are curving towards the shoulder, the whole arm, with the elbow forming nearly an angle of a square, should move upwards from the shoulder, in the same position as when gracefully taking off the hat; that is, with the elbow extended from the side, and the upper joint of the arm nearly on a line with the shoulder, and forming an angle of a square with the body--(see plate III.) This motion of the arm will naturally bring the hand with the palm downwards, into an horizontal position, and when it approaches to the head, the arm should with a jerk be suddenly straitened into its first position, at the very moment the emphatical word is pronounced. This coincidence of the hand and voice, will greatly enforce the pronunciation; and if they keep time, they will be in tune as it were to each other, and to force and energy add harmony and variety.

As this motion of the arm is somewhat complicated, and may be found difficult to execute, it would be adviseable to let the pupil at first speak without any motion of the arm at all. After some time he will naturally fall into a small curvature of the elbow, to beat time, as it were, to the emphatic word; and if, in doing this, he is constantly urged to raise the elbow, and to keep it at a distance from the body, the action of the arm will naturally grow up into that we have just described. So the diagonal position of the arm, though the most graceful and easy when the body is at rest, may he too difficult for boys to fall into at first; and therefore it may be necessary, in order to avoid the worse extreme, for some time to make them extend the arm as far from the body as they can, in a somewhat similar direction, but higher from the ground, and inclining more to the back. Great care must be taken to keep the hand open, and the thumb at some distance from the fingers; and particular attention must be paid to keeping the hand in the exact line with the lower part of the arm, so as not to bend at the wrist, either when it is held out without motion, or when it gives the emphatic stroke. And above all, the body must be kept in a straight line with the leg on which it bears, and not suffered to bend to the opposite side.

At first it may not be improper for the teacher, after placing the pupil in the position plate I. to stand at some distance exactly opposite to him in the same position, the right and left sides only reversed, and while the pupil is speaking, to show him by example the action he is to make use of. In this case the teacher's left hand will correspond for the pupil's right, by which means he will see as in a looking-glass, how to regulate his gesture, and will soon catch the method of doing it by himself.

It is expected the master will be a little discouraged at the aukward figure his pupil makes in his first attempts to teach him. But this is no more than what happens in dancing, fencing, or any other exercise which depends on habit. By practice, the pupil will soon begin to feel his position, and be easy in it. Those positions which were at first distressing to him, he will fall into naturally, and if they are such as are really graceful and becoming (and such it is presumed are those which have been just described) they will be adopted with more facility than any other that can be taught him.