Here is a "Twelve-Inch Shelf of Books That Every Public Speaker Should Know." On this shelf you will find books both new and old, the genuine and the tried, and some of those on trial—but all, in my opinion, worthy of the speaker's careful attention.
Your voice is probably your greatest single professional asset.
"The power of speech is a talent that should be diligently cultivated. Of all the gifts we have received from God, none is capable of being a greater blessing than this. With the voice we convince and persuade; with it we offer prayer and praise to God, and with it we tell others of the Redeemer's love. How important, then, that it be so trained as to be most effective for good."—Christ's Object Lessons, p. 335.
I have found no better book to aid in training the voice than Virgil A. Anderson's Training the Speaking Voice (Oxford University Press, New York, 1942, 387 pages). To an outline of background material on the physical, physiological, and psychological bases of speech, Anderson adds a program of exercises and drills designed to help the speaker remove vocal hindrances to adequate communication and develop his inherent potentialities in speech. The book is to be especially commended for the wealth of illustrations in prose and verse included as exercise materials.
You cannot use your voice well unless you breathe well, for breath is the stuff that voice is made of. And you cannot breathe well unless you carry yourself well, for adequate breathing cannot function in a cramped body. It behooves the speaker, therefore, to give attention to his posture—standing, walking, sitting, lying. Ralph M. Harper's The Voice Governor (E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Boston, 1940-45, 152 pages) analyzes the physical aspects of voice, presents a series of simple exercises in body mechanics as applied to voice, and at the same time opens the way to increased health and vitality. The first part of this book has appeared in a separate printing under the popular title of G-Suiting the Body. Says the author:
"One cannot use the six exercises in the introductory chapter—one minute twice a day for a week—without discovering the possibility of something entirely new for his health and his voice alike. Within a week he will be amazed, maybe secretly amused, over comments that his voice carries so naturally. Three months may be needed, however, to make the new body mechanics habitual, perhaps three years to do a permanent job."
I have used Harper's book for several years and have recommended it to hundreds of speakers in the Seminary and in preachers' conferences and institutes. Uniformly, where Harper's exercises have been used intelligently and habitually, the results have been exceedingly gratifying.
For a comprehensive survey of the basic principles of delivery and of speech composition, with practical attention to the fundamental types of speech, special types of public speech, and group discussion, Alan H. Monroe's Principles and Types of Speech (third edition, Scott, Foresman and Company, New York, 1949, 658 pages) is recommended. This book is noteworthy for its presentation of the motivated sequence, in which the completely convincing speech is analyzed in its several phases of development: attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, action. This speech formula works, and has been found to provide a satisfying plan for many an effective sermon. In 1951 Monroe published a revised brief edition of his comprehensive book under the title Principles of Speech, which has most of the virtues of the original book and, in addition, includes a more thorough treatment of outlining and an admirable new chapter on "The Speaker and His Audience."
Some books are valuable as a whole and also because of high levels of thought briefly expressed at intervals within their pages. Such a book is James Albert Winans' Public Speaking (The Century Company, New York, 1917, 526 pages). For a discussion of public speaking as enlarged conversation you will find nothing better than Chapter II of this fundamental work in the field of public speaking. If you really gain the concept of speaker-audience relationship explained in this chapter, you will never again merely deliver a message to your audience, but you will share your message with your audience in the "come now and let us reason together" relationship. On page 31 of Winans' book, delivery with desirable conversational quality is analyzed as retaining "upon the platform those elements of the mental state of live conversation: I. Full realization of the content of your words as you utter them, and 2. A lively sense of communication." Winans' treatment of the place of interest as a chief factor in persuasion is of great significance.
For the preacher who is expected to have something to say and to say it effectively on every occasion, Willard Hayes Yeager's Effective Speaking for Every Occasion (second edition, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1951, 407 pages) has real help. In this book the public speaker will find a discussion of the principles peculiar to the preparation of each of the most common types of speech, with models from the mouths of prominent speakers to illustrate each type. Twenty different kinds of speech are explained and illustrated, including speeches of response and farewell, speeches of celebration, speeches of explanation, good-will speeches, radio and television speeches. Yeager's book also includes a general discussion of the fundamental principles of effectiveness before an audience. The alert pastor-evangelist will find this volume an inspiring companion.
If you wish to follow intelligently Paul's dictum, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some," and to that end increase knowledge of the techniques of persuasion, Winston Lamont Brembeck and William Smiley Howell have written their Persuasion: A Means of Social Control (Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1952, 448 pages) for you. The preface of this work has these statements of the basic point of view of the authors: they "assume that an adequate understanding of persuasion must rest upon knowledge of the relevant bases of human behavior rather than a descriptive study of techniques and appeals used by successful persuaders. The inductive approach of this book leads the reader in a search for the fundamental elements of human motivation from which the methodology of persuasion is derived."
There is no end to the production of books on parliamentary law. But perhaps the most useful recent guidebook to the principles of parliamentary procedure and the conduct of business meetings is Alice F. Sturgis' Learning Parliamentary Procedure (McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1953, 358 pages). This book is based upon the Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure (McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1950, 268 pages), which is primarily a book of reference after the fashion of Robert's Rules of Order. Learning Parliamentary Procedure is not a memory course, but a reasonable explanation of "the fundamental principles underlying group functioning." Clever illustrations and verses enhance the appeal of this very practical book. Get a copy, and read a chapter each week for thirty-three weeks. Result: there will be more efficiency and economy of time with increased satisfaction in your business meeting.
And if you want a book that will yield a maximum of benefit from a minimum of energy expended, get a copy of Sidney S. Sutherland's When You Preside (The Interstate Printers and Publishers, Danville, Illinois, 1952, 158 pages). One look at its simple line cartoons and the captions to its chapters will beguile you into reading the whole book. This is the most painless way of improving one's ability to preside, and conduct various types of meetings that I have seen.
In an age when discussion is an essential tool of democracy, and in a church in which discussion forms a very prominent part of organizational activity, the Seventh-day Adventist public speaker will find a wealth of enlightening information on the use of this democratic tool in Discussion and Debate, by Henry Lee Ewbank and J. Jeffery Auer (second edition, Appleton Century-Crofts, Inc., 1951, 492 pages). A rounded study of the nature of the problem to be discussed—its definition, exploration, possible solutions, and choice of best solution —precedes an excellent study of the nature of people as participants in discussion. Perhaps the most practical value of this book lies in its clear, useful explanation of the various forms of discussion: forum, cooperative investigation, committee and conference discussion, panel discussion, public hearing, symposium, et cetera. Every administrator would be better prepared if he would devote a series of winter evenings to the studious perusal of Discussion and Debate, especially pages 267-356.
Semantics is a hard word, but it has become a part of the speaker's vocabulary. It simply has to do with the meanings of words and the development of these meanings in human relationships. How often we have realized that we could not get together in understanding because a word that means one thing to me means something entirely different to you. And how often we raise a red flag in the eyes of our hearers when we use a word loaded with associations that offend them and close their minds to our ideas. To understand more clearly the implications of semantics, try Stuart Chase's The Tyranny of Words (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1938, 396 pages), or his recent Power of Words (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954, 308 pages). Says Chase:
"Good language alone will not save mankind. But seeing the things behind the names will help us to understand the structure of the world we live in. Good language will help us to communicate with one another about the realities of our environment, where now we speak darkly, in alien tongues."—The Tyranny of Words, p. 361.
Happy is the public speaker who undergirds his actual speaking experiences with a working knowledge of the age-old principles that guide him toward effective speaking. For twenty-five hundred years—and more—students of speech have been studying the standards that characterize effective speech. The development of these standards from the times of the ancient Greeks to our contemporary critics is comprehensively covered in Speech Criticism, by Lester Thonnsen and A. Craig Baird (The Ronald Press Company, New York, 1948, 542 pages). After sections on "The Nature of Rhetorical Criticism," "The Development of Rhetorical Theory," "The Methods of the Critics," and "Preliminary Aspects of Rhetorical Criticism"; Part V. "The Standards of Judgment," includes a rich discussion of emotion in speech, the speaker's character, the structure, style, and delivery of speech; and closes with a brief study of the measurement of effectiveness. To the serious student of the art and practice of public speaking, this book is a gold mine. The speaker who is not willing to dig hard should not open its covers. Appendix A includes supplementary readings and exercises that should keep the growing speaker profitably busy at study for several years.
As you read the books described above, remember with Francis Bacon that we should "read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously [attentively]; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy [tasteless] things. Reading maketh a full man."—"Of Studies."
Therefore, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).
