So this is (any place you please).

Argosies of the air.

Heroism on the field of honor.

All the world loves a lover.

What fools we mortals be.

On life's firing line.

Where women most do congregate.

When I sang in the choir.

O for a soft and gentle wind.
Spring.

The day I was a poet.

Lower 10.

Solomon Levi and Juanita.

Outward bound.

Mental handcuffs.
Human tanks.

My pet embarrassments.

I'm off my game.

This too, too solid flesh.

Bobbed bandits of the campus.

The latest fashion in murders.
Holding in the line.

When the gates were crashed.

The higher nobility.

The everlasting mercy.

2. To Stimulate

The world is waiting for the dawn of peace.

Man wants but little here below.

There is no place like home.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

One plus one equals three.

Kind hearts are more than coronets.

No man liveth unto himself alone.

Put not your trust in princes.

The prayer of the righteous availeth much.

God keepeth watch above his own.

Not to the swift is the race.

We grow by what we feed on.

The Lord is in His holy temple.
The soil is the basis of civilization.
Our natural resources are almost gone.
New conditions bring new customs.

The church is the advance guard of civilization.
Our strength lies in working as one.

I will lift up mine eyes to the mountains.
This man (any hero) is an example to all of us.

This conviction (any) we will defend.

Ye must be born again.

Kind deeds can never die.

Our party (or creed or sect or cult or what you will) is

the chosen of Heaven, God's anointed.

This is hallowed ground.

We honor the heroes who fought and died for us.

Our principles will stand above the wreckage of human

error.

Faith without works is dead.

The quality of mercy is not strained.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

3. To Inform

Any propositions arising from the following topic words and phrases will serve:

Lighter-than-air navigation.

The message of the rocks.

The history of poisons.

The process of making-thousands of things.

College debating.

Events leading up to the great war.

The state of the peerage in England.

The virtues of Holsteins.
Quackery and advertising.

The gold rush of 1927.

Mexican policies of State from 1900 to 1925.

Vacation industries in the South.

Our local bank situation.

New York's new Towers of Babel.

Picture palaces.

American indifference to foreign affairs.

The latest in ultra and infra rays.

Movements toward coöperation among farmers.

The after effects of the espionage act.

The life of anybody.

The history of-many, many things.

An explanation of this or that theory of principle.
The newest openings for college graduates.

Prison reform.

Tariff and the farmer.

The solid south and the Democratic party.

Air mail and express.

The president and the servile press.

The gasoline supply.

Hard roads.

4. To Convince

There are two sides to each of these assertions of belief:

The country needs a new political alignment.

Our schools are more devoted to play than to work.
We need a censor for the stage.

Youth is enjoying too great freedom.

Christians do not sufficiently support their convictions.
Industry will hurt itself by its attitude toward agricul-
ture.

Main Street needs an awakening in architecture.
Something must be done to conserve wild life.

The law needs reforming.

Einstein is a benefactor to human thought.

Young people today do not really know what drunken-
ness is.

Congress is at the mercy of slavish party regularity.
State universities are handicapped for honesty of thinking.
Foreign oil is not worth the evils bred in getting it.
Newspaper ethics are a myth.

Big-city ideals are a menace to town and farm.

The opponents of the Eighteenth Amendment have yet to suggest a convincing substitute.

College is no longer a place for education.

Jazz is doomed to early extinction.

My home town rates high.

The airplane is destined to revolutionize traffic.

Our climate is changing.

Flag waving in the public schools is futile as a breeder

of sincere patriotism.

Nullification will yet wreck the union.

High-school athletes get their diplomas too easily.

The modern girl needs to slow down.

America needs more homes and fewer clubs.

Our industry is dangerously overexpanded.
Child labor is still a menace.

Electric power monopoly is a national menace.

CHAPTER XVI

DEVELOPING THE OUTLINE

Argument of the Chapter.-Any declarative sentence may serve as an outline topic and can be developed convincingly by an informed and ingenious speaker. Convincingness of ideas arises from three sources; experience, authority, and reasoning. Which of these to use and when, the speaker decides by the attitude which a given outline topic excites in the audience: whether they accept it, suspend decision, or reject it. From these three attitudes of the audience spring three methods of developing outline topics: the impressive, the didactic, and the conciliatory. By using the right method of choosing material to develop topics, the speaker can aim directly at the interests of his audience and carry a maximum of convincingness, both to the various topics of the outline and to the specific proposition from which the speech gets its start and which is its logical and emotional conclusion.

DEVELOPING TOPIC SENTENCES

Assume that you now have your outline in fair shape for going ahead with the speech. You have before you a number of "points," full declarative sentences committing you to definite stands on certain matters, and arranged in an order which you hope promises success. Say that the outline, then, is good enough to go ahead with-though as you read and think you will be likely to find improvements. What does the situation call for next? We find our answer again in human nature, in how topic sentences are accepted by the audience.

Note that almost any kind of declarative sentence can be used for a topic. Much can be said on any of the following, though they differ most widely in weight, tone, and dramatic power:

The view was unsurpassed.

The world is too much with us.

Congress is made up of inferior men.

Taxes that year had been unconscionably high.

To the brave belong the fair.

Bridge is a game that requires the greatest concentration.

The farm-relief bill provoked unparalleled deception of the voters.

Seek ye first the kindom of God and all these things will be added unto you.

It had been a wet, unpleasant night.

You have done wrong and you know it.

What you are speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.
This condition was caused by the tariff on wheat.

The result will be an incomparable growth for our industry.
A hot time was had by all.

For such sentiments he should have been banished from decent society.

It takes no great ingenuity to make an interesting threeminute speech on any of these sentence topics. They can be used here as an exercise in amplifying an outline topic into interesting discourse. If you can do this, you are ready for public appearances; for this matter of developing topics is speaking and writing.

But at once it will be noted that no sensible speaker would go about it to develop all these in just the same spirit and manner. Then what is he to do about it? On what basis shall he treat them as differently as they deserve? The answer is found again in the audience and its feelings. So next we come to a consideration of how audiences can be expected to feel toward the speaker's topics, or "points," or arguments, and what is to be done to meet their feelings. Note that the outline maker at this stage of his work is predicting, is deciding beforehand, how his prospective audience will feel about the topic sentences he has decided upon.

Let us try to make a formula for the selection of ideas so as to develop outline topics most advantageously.

I. SOURCES OF CONVINCINGNESS OF IDEAS

We get ideas from three general sources: (1) What we have seen and felt; (2) what other people tell us; and (3) what we reason out. We can call these:

Ideas we have gained by Experience.