Part 29

To enhance the illustration of the two main heads of the Art of Study, I will so far deviate from the idea of the essay, as to take up a special branch of education, which, more than any other, has been reduced to form and rule, I mean the great accomplishment of Oratory, or the Art of Persuasion. The practical Science of Rhetoric, cultivated both by ancients and by moderns, has especially occupied itself with directions for acquiring this great engine of influencing mankind.

It was emphatically averred by the ancient teachers of the Oratorical art, that it must be grounded on a wide basis of general information. I do not here discuss the exact scope of this preparatory study, as my purpose is to narrow the illustration to what is special to the faculty of persuasion. I must even omit all those points relating to delivery or elocution, on which so much depends; and also the consideration of how to attain readiness or fluency in spoken address, except in so far as that follows from abundant oratorical resources. We thus sink the difference between spoken oratory, and persuasion through the press.

Even as thus limited, oratory is still too wide for a pointed illustration: and, so, I propose farther to confine my references to the department of Political Oratory; coupling with that, however, the Forensic branch--which has much in common with the other, and has given birth to some of our most splendid examples of the art of persuasion.

While declining to enter on the wide field of the general education of the orator, I may not improperly advert to the more immediate preparation for the political orator, by a familiar acquaintance with History and Political Philosophy, howsoever obtained. Then, on the other hand, the course here to be chalked out assumes a considerable proficiency in language or expression. The special education will incidentally improve both these accomplishments, but must not be relied on for creating them, or for causing a marked advance in either. The effect to be looked for is rather to give them direction for the special end.

These things premised, the line of proceeding manifestly is to study the choicest examples of the oratorical art, according to the methods already laid down, with due adaptation to the peculiarities of the case.

Now, we have not, as in a Science, two or three systematic works, one of which is to be chosen as a chief, to be followed by a reference more or less to the others. Our material is a long series of detached orations; from these we must make a selection at starting, and such selection, which may comprise ten or twenty or more, will have to be treated with the intense single-minded devotion that we hitherto limited to a single work. Repeated perusal, with a process of abstracting to be described presently, must be bestowed upon the chosen examples, before embarking, as will be necessary, upon the wide field of miscellaneous oratory.

No doubt, an oratorical education could be grounded in a general and equal study of the orators at large, taking the ancients either first or last, according to fancy. Probably the greater number of students have fallen into this apparently obvious course. Our present contention is, that it is better to make a thorough study of a proper selection of the greatest speeches, together with the most persuasive unspoken compositions. This, however, is not all. We are following the wisdom of the ancients, in insisting on the farther expedient of proceeding to the study of the great examples by the aid of an oratorical scheme. At a very early stage of Oratory in Greece, its methods began to be studied, and, in the education of the orator, these methods were made to accompany the study of exemplary speeches.

The principles of Rhetoric at large, and of the Persuasive art in particular, have been elaborated by successive stages, and are now in a tolerable state of advancement. The learner will choose the scheme that is judged best, and will endeavour to master it provisionally, before entering on the oratorical models; holding it open to amendment from time to time, as his education goes on. The scheme and the examples mutually act and re-act: the better the scheme, the more rapidly will the examples fructify; and the scheme will, in its turn, profit by the mastery of the details.

One great use of an oratorical analysis, as supplied by the teachers of Rhetoric, is to part off the different merits of a perfect oration; and to show which are to be extracted from the various exemplary orators. One man excels in forcible arguments, another in the lucid array of facts; one is impressive and impassioned, another is quiet but circumspect. Now, the benefit of studying on principle, instead of working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one's strong points, and disregard the rest. But it needs a preparatory analysis, in order to make the discrimination. All that the uninstructed reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great: this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for an oratorical disciple.

In the hazardous task of pursuing the illustration by naming the examples of oratory most suitable to commence with, I shall pass over living men, and choose from the past orators of our own country. Without discussing minutely the respective merits of individuals, I am safe in selecting, as in every way suitable for our purpose, Burke, Fox, Erskine, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay. Burke's Speeches on America; Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny; Erskine on Stockdale, and on Hardy, Tooke, &c.; Canning on the Slave Trade; Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Denman in the Queen's Trial; Macaulay on the Reform Bill,--would comprise, in a moderate compass, a considerable range of oratorical excellence. I doubt if any member of the list would be more suitable for a beginning than Macaulay's Reform Speeches. These are no mere displays of a brilliant imagination: they are known to have influenced thousands of minds otherwise averse to political change. The reader finds in them an immense repository of historical facts as well as of doctrines; but facts and doctrines, by themselves, do not make oratory. It is the use made of these, that gives us the instruction we are now in quest of. In a first or second reading, however, matter and form equally captivate the mind. It would be impossible, at that early stage, to make an abstract such as would separate the oratorical from the non-oratorical merits. Only when, by help of our scheme, we have made a critical distinction between the two kinds of excellence, are we able to arrive at an approach to a pure oratorical lesson; and, for a long time, we shall fail to make the desired isolation. We have to learn not to expect too much from any one speech: to pass over in Macaulay, what is more conspicuously shown, say in Fox, or in Erskine. If our political and historical education has made some progress, the mere thoughts and facts do not detain us; their employment for the end of persuasion is what we have to take account of.

It is impossible here to indicate, except in a very general way, the successive steps of the operation. The one summary consideration in the Rhetoric of Oratory, from which flows the entire array of details, is the regard to the dispositions and state of mind of the audience; the presenting of topics and considerations that chime in with these dispositions, and the avoiding of everything that would conflict with them. To grasp this comprehensive view, and to follow it out in some of the chief circumstantials of persuasive address--the leading forms of argument, and the appeals to the more prominent feelings,--would soon provide a touchstone to a great oration, and lead us to distinguish the materials of oratory from the use made of them.

Take the circumstance of negative tact; by which is meant the careful avoidance of whatever might grate on the minds of those addressed. Forensic oratory in general, and the oratory of Parliamentary leaders in particular, will show this in perfection; and, for a first study of it, there is probably nothing to surpass the Erskine Speeches above cited. It could, however, be found in Macaulay; although in a different proportion to the other merits.

The Macaulay Speeches have the abundance of matter, and the powers of style, that minister to oratory, although not constituting its distinctive feature. In these speeches, we may note how he guages the minds of the men of rank and property, in and out of Parliament, who constituted the opposition to Reform; how tenderly he deals with their prejudices and class interests; how he shapes and adduces his arguments so as to gain those very feelings to the side he advocates; how he brings his accumulated store of historical illustrations to his aid, under the guidance of both the positive and the negative tact of the orator; saying everything to gain, and nothing to alienate the dispositions that he has carefully measured.

After Erskine and Macaulay have yielded their first contribution to the oratorical student, he could turn with profit to Burke, who has the materials of oratory in the same high order as Macaulay, but who in the employment of them so often miscarries--sometimes partially, at other times wholly. It then becomes an exercise to distinguish his successes from his failures; to resolve these into their elementary merits and defects, according to the oratorical scheme. The close study of one or two orations is still the preferable course; and the most profitable transition from the Burke sample is to the selected speech or speeches of some other orator as Canning or Brougham. All the time, the pupil must be enlarging and improving his analytic scheme, which is the means of keeping his mind to the point in hand, amid the distraction of the orator's gorgeous material.

The subsequent stages of oratorical study are much plainer than the commencement. A time comes when the pupil will roam freely over the great field of oratory, modern and ancient, knowing more and more exactly what to appropriate and what to neglect. He will be quite aware of the necessity of rivalling the great masters in resources of knowledge on the one hand, and of style on the other; but he will look for these elsewhere, as well as in the professed orators.

Moreover, as the persuasive art is exemplified in men that have never been public speakers, the oratorical pupil will make a selection from the most influential of this class. He will find, for example, in the argumentative treatises of Johnson, in the Letters of Junius, in the writings of Godwin, in Sydney Smith, in Bentham, in Cobbett, in Robert Hall, in Fonblanque, in J.S. Mill, in Whately, and a host besides, the exemplification of oratorical merits, together with materials that are of value. It is understood, however, that the search for materials and the acquisition of oratorical form, are not made to advantage on the same lines, and, for this and other reasons, should not go together.

The extreme test of the principle of concentration as against equal application, is the acquirement of Style, or the extending of our resources of diction and expression in all its particulars. Being a matter of endless minute details, we may feel ourselves at a loss to compass it by the intensive study of a narrow and select example. Still, with due allowance for the speciality of the case, the principle will still be found applicable. We should, however, carry along with us, the maxim exemplified under oratory, of separating in our study, as far as may be, the style from the matter. We begin by choosing a treatise of some great master. We may then operate either (1) by simple reading and re-reading, or (2) by committing portions to memory verbatim, or (3), best of all, by making some changes according to an already acquired ideal of good composition. This too shows the great importance of attaining as early as possible some regulating principles of goodness of style: the action and reaction of these, on the most exemplary authors, constitute our progress in the art, and, in the quickest way, store the memory with the resources of good expression.

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III. The head just now finished includes really by far the greatest portion of the economy of study. There are various other devices of importance in their way, but much less liable to error in practice. Of these, a leading place may be assigned to the best modes of Distributing the Attention in reading. Such questions as the following present themselves for consideration to the earnest student. How many distinct studies can be carried on together? What interval should be allowed in passing from one to another? How much time should be given to the art of reading, and how much to subsequent meditating or ruminating on what has been read? These points are all susceptible of being determined, within moderate limits of error. As to the first, the remark was made by Quintilian, that, in youth, we can most easily pass from one study to another. The reason of this, however, is, that youth does not take very seriously to any study. When a special study becomes engrossing, the alternatives must rather be recreative than acquisitive; not much progress being made in what is slighted, or left over to the exhaustion caused by attention to the favourite topic. A more precise answer can be made to the second and third queries, namely, as to an interval for recall and meditation, after putting down a book, and before turning the attention into other channels. There is a very clear principle of economy here. We should save as far as possible the fatigue of the reading process, or make a given amount of attention to the printed page yield the greatest impression on the memory. This is done by the exercise of recalling without the book; an advantage that we do not possess in listening to a lecture, until the whole is finished, when we have too much to recall. To hurry from book to book is to gain stimulation at the cost of acquisition.

I have alluded to the case of an engrossing subject, which starves all accompanying studies. There are but two ways of obviating the evil, if it be an evil; which it indeed becomes, when the alternative demands also are legitimate. The one is peremptorily to limit the time given to it daily, so as to rescue some portion of the strength for other topics. The other is to intermit it wholly for a certain period, and let other subjects have their swing. In advancing life, and when our studious leisure is only what is left from professional occupation, two different studies can hardly go on together. The alternative of a single study needs to be purely recreative.

One other point may be noted under this head. In the application to a book of importance and difficulty, there are two ways of going to work: to move on slowly, and master as we go; or to move on quickly to the end, and begin again. There is most to be said for the first method, although distinguished men have worked upon the other. The freshness of the matter is taken off by a single reading; the re-reading is so much flatter in point of interest. Moreover, there is a great satisfaction in making our footing sure at each step, as well as in finishing the task when the first perusal is completed. We cannot well dispense with re-reading, but it need not extend to the whole; marked passages should show where the comprehension and mastery are still lagging.

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IV. Another topic is Desultory Reading. This is the whole of the reading of the unstudious mass; it is but a part of the reading of the true student. It may mean, for one thing, jumping from book to book, perhaps reading no one through, except for pure amusement. It may also include the reading of periodicals, where no one subject is treated at any length. As a general rule, such reading does not give us new foundations, or constitute the point of departure of a fresh department of knowledge; yet the amount of labour and thought bestowed upon articles in periodicals, may render them efficacious in adding to a previous stock of materials, or in correcting imperfect views. The truth is, that to the studious man, the desultory is not desultory. The only difference with him is that he has two attitudes that he may assume--the severe and the easy-going; the one is most associated with systematic works on leading subjects; the other with short essays, periodicals, newspapers, and conversation. In this last attitude, which is reserved for hours of relaxation, he skips matters of difficulty, and absorbs scattered and interesting particulars without expressly aiming at the solution of problems or the discussion of abstract principles. There is no reason why an essay in a periodical, a pamphlet, or a speech in Parliament, may not take a first place in anyone's education. All the labour and resource that go to form a work of magnitude may be concentrated in any one of these. Still, they are presented in the form that we are accustomed to associate with our desultory work, and our times of relaxation; and so, they seldom produce in the minds of readers the effect that they are capable of producing. The thorough student will not fail to extract materials from one and all of them, but even he will scarcely choose from such sources the text for the commencement of a new study.

The desultory is not a bad way of increasing our resources of expression. Although there be a systematic and a best mode of acquiring language, there is also an inferior, yet not ineffective mode; namely, reading copiously whatever authors have at once a good style and a sustaining interest. Hence, for this purpose, shifting from book to book, taking up short and light compositions, may be of considerable value; anything is better than not reading at all, or than reading compositions inferior in point of style. The desultory man will not be without a certain flow of language as well as a command of ideas; notwithstanding which, he will never be confounded with the studious man.

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V. A fifth point is the proportion of book-reading to Observation of the facts at first hand. From want of opportunity, or from disinclination, many persons have all their information on certain subjects cast in the bookish mould, and do not fully conceive the particular facts as these strike the mind in their own character. A reader of History, with no experience of affairs, is likely to have imperfect bookish notions; just as a man of affairs, not a reader, is subject to narrowness of another kind. It was remarked by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, that the German historians of the Athenian Democracy write like men that never had any actual experience of popular assemblies. A lawyer must be equally versed in principles and in cases as heard in court: this is a type of knowledge generally. In the Natural History Sciences, observation and reading go hand in hand from the first. In the science of the Human Mind, there are general doctrines, contrived to embrace the world of mental phenomena: the student may have to begin with these, and work upon them exclusively for a time, but in the end, phenomena must be independently viewed by him in their naked character, as exhibited directly in his own mind, and inferentially in the minds of those that fall under his observation. Book knowledge of Disease has to be coupled with bed-side knowledge; neither will take the place of the other.

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VI. I began by limiting the meaning of study to the reading of books, and have reviewed the various points in the economy of this process. The other means of attaining, enlarging, deepening our knowledge, namely, Observation of facts, Conversation, Disputation, Composition, have each an art of its own--especially Disputation, which has long been reduced to rule. Observation also admits of specific directions, but, in stating the necessity of combining observation with book theories and descriptions, I have assumed the knowledge of how to observe.