5. From a private or a public library gather enough authoritative material on one of the following questions to build an outline for a twenty-minute address. Take one definite side of the question, (a) "The Housing of the Poor;" (b) "The Commission Form of Government for Cities as a Remedy for Political Graft;" (c) "The Test of Woman's Suffrage in the West;" (d) "Present Trends of Public Taste in Reading;" (e) "Municipal Art;" (f) "Is the Theatre Becoming more Elevated in Tone?" (g) "The Effects of the Magazine on Literature;" (h) "Does Modern Life Destroy Ideals?" (i) "Is Competition 'the Life of Trade?'" (j) "Baseball is too Absorbing to be a Wholesome National Game;" (k) "Summer Baseball and Amateur Standing;" (l) "Does College Training Unfit a Woman for Domestic Life?" (m) "Does Woman's Competition with Man in Business Dull the Spirit of Chivalry?" (n) "Are Elective Studies Suited to High School Courses?" (o) "Does the Modern College Prepare Men for Preeminent Leadership?" (p) "The Y.M.C.A. in Its Relation to the Labor Problem;" (q) "Public Speaking as Training in Citizenship."
6. Construct the outline, examining it carefully for interest, convincing character, proportion, and climax of arrangement.
NOTE:--This exercise should be repeated until the student shows facility in synthetic arrangement.
7. Deliver the address, if possible before an audience.
8. Make a three-hundred word report on the results, as best you are able to estimate them.
9. Tell something of the benefits of using a periodical (or cumulative) index.
10. Give a number of quotations, suitable for a speaker's use, that you have memorized in off moments.
11. In the manner of the outline on page 213, analyze the address on pages 78-79, "The History of Liberty."
12. Give an outline analysis, from notes or memory, of an address or sermon to which you have listened for this purpose.
13. Criticise the address from a structural point of view.
14. Invent titles for any five of the themes in Exercise 5.
15. Criticise the titles of any five chapters of this book, suggesting better ones.
16. Criticise the title of any lecture or address of which you know.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg Esenwein.]
[Footnote 11: Adapted from Competition-Rhetoric, Scott and Denny, p. 241.]
INFLUENCING BY EXPOSITION
Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.
--THOMAS CARLYLE, Essay on Biography.
A complete discussion of the rhetorical structure of public speeches requires a fuller treatise than can be undertaken in a work of this nature, yet in this chapter, and in the succeeding ones on "Description," "Narration," "Argument," and "Pleading," the underlying principles are given and explained as fully as need be for a working knowledge, and adequate book references are given for those who would perfect themselves in rhetorical art.
The Nature of Exposition
In the word "expose"--to lay bare, to uncover, to show the true inwardness of--we see the foundation-idea of "Exposition." It is the clear and precise setting forth of what the subject really is--it is explanation.
