Speech-Making

Excerpt from Speech-Making

Some years ago it was my privilege to organize at the University of Michigan a course for the preparation and delivery of original speeches. It was the purpose of this course to give students frequent, high-grade practice in the preparation of speech-plans and in extemporaneous speaking from the platform. Students were assigned imaginary occasions and were allowed to choose their own subjects. Each student was required to submit, at least a week before his speech was due, a very carefully prepared plan, or brief, of what he expected to say. This was criticised and returned to him and if necessary was rewritten. He then made the speech from the platform without the use of notes, the one aim being to make an effective speech. These speeches were not to be written and memorized in a formal way, but were to be thoroughly thought out. They were not to be practice in mere talking, but were to be the persuasive presentation of interesting and vital ideas. Speakers were allowed from seven to ten minutes on the platform.

This course at once proved to be a most helpful one. It gave the student greater freedom to follow his own intellectual tastes and to express his own personal feelings than was possible in a course in debating, where only one side of a formal resolution was taken by the speaker. It gave him a chance to throw himself heart and soul into his speech by making him responsible for a whole message rather than for one side of an argument.

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