very clearly and forcibly, so that all will be related to one central word.

HIGH AND LOW

A Boot and a Shoe and a Slipper

Lived once in the Cobbler's row;
But the Boot and the Shoe

Would have nothing to do

With the Slipper, because she was low.

But the king and the queen and their daughter

On the Cobbler chanced to call;

And as neither the Boot

Nor the Shoe would suit,

The Slipper went off to the ball.

John B. Tabb

You must tell things often in your own words and make stories clear. After a trip to the woods or along a brookside, try to tell in order what you noticed, one thing at a time, so as to interest people.

It is a good exercise to take some passage, a poetic passage for example, printed as prose, some story or some essay, and observe that paragraphing is primarily determined by emphasis; at any rate, that the two are closely related. In studying the subject of emphasis it is also well for the student to make an outline of a talk and then give a talk, then let it be completed and be criticized in regard to the insight and the centres of each paragraph and the argument of the whole. A good outline should be a record only of the emphatic points.

XXV. FACILITY IN RANGE OF VOICE

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle;

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

From "The Railway Carriage,"

Child's Garden of Verse.

Robert Louis Stevenson

It can be easily seen that to give ideas and words the right relation to one another and to use all these modulations, the voice must respond easily and naturally to thinking. Thinking alone is not enough; there must also be great facility in changing pitch and in varying the length of inflexion. Upon this as well as mental action depends the range or extent of the play of your voice.

The first step in gaining agility of voice is a spontaneous variation of the mind. Think one thing at a time and allow your mind to enjoy it; and then take another in the same way, and so on. But sometimes the voice becomes rigid and does not easily respond. Making voice by will may destroy its power of simple and direct response to thinking.

Simple scales are helpful exercises to give facility in change of pitch, but even in practicing these, the certain joyous exaltation, with imaginative sense of a lyric situation causes the exercises to be much more helpful.

We must be sure that our voices are able to change pitch and respond easily and freely to every change in idea. Practice short passages, increasing inflexions, and exaggerating the changes in pitch, and the decision and vigor of the phrase accents. To make a very definite change in the attitude of the mind and a corresponding change in the inflexion, always remember that expression is a change in voice or body directly caused by a change in mind, and that both must always go together. If we make a more vigorous change in mind, if we assure ourselves that the voice responds or is part of the mental action, we are forming an exercise. For this it is necessary to take exclamations or short lines in which attention may be more definitely focussed upon the mode of thinking and the response of the voice.

RING OUT THE OLD

Ring, New-Year bells, ring loud and clear,
With merry peals so full of cheer.
Ring in the boy that's first at school;
Ring out the dunce-block and the fool.
Ring in the boy that's bright as day,
That loves to work and loves to play.
Ring out the idler and the drone;
Ring out the grumblers, every one;
Ring out the boy who will not lend
A willing hand to help a friend.
Ring in new school-books and new toys;
Ring out all things that ruin boys;
Ring out the smoker and the smoke;
Ring out old habit's ugly yoke.
Ring out the swearer from the street;
Ring out the fighter and the cheat;

Ring out the child that does n't care;
Ring in good children everywhere.

Observe in these lines on the ringing out of the old year, that you can give the central idea in each phrase on a very different pitch from that of the preceding. Read it in this way, and give as great a variety as you can, not only in length of inflexion but in changes of pitch, range of voice, pause and touch. Repeat it naturally and simply, but observe that you express joy not by loudness but by these variations and by the sympathetic texture of your voice.

ADVICE TO BOYS

Whatever you are, be brave;
The liar's a coward and slave;
Though clever at ruses

And sharp at excuses,

He's a sneaking and pitiful knave.

Whatever you are, be frank;
'Tis better than money and rank.
Still cleave to the right,

Be lovers of light,

Be open, above board, and frank.

Whatever you are, be kind;
Be gentle in manners and mind.
The man gentle in mien,
Words, and temper, I ween,

Is the gentleman truly refined.

Render this passage with great earnestness. Say what you mean, making the inflexions of your voice reveal it. Be very pointed and definite. Give as great variety in direction and length of inflexion, in the length of your pauses, and the vigor and intensity of the phrase accents, and in changes of pitch between words and phrases, as you possibly can. Do not make these changes mechanical, but direct your attention to your ideas. Make thinking more vigorous, ideas more in contrast, and more varied. your feeling distribute your words and ideas in such a way that someone else can understand them.

THE BRASS BAND

It makes me feel so fine and gay
When drums are beat and bugles play:

I think I'd like to be a king

And rule the earth and everything.

The big bass-drum

Goes dum, dum, dum,

The horns play tweedle dee,
And every toot and every beat
Just catches hold of my two feet
And makes them run away from me.
And this is what I hear them say
As down the street they march away:

Te dum, ratta dum, ratta dum dum dee,

Te dum, ratta dum, shout "hurrah," boys, with me! Tweedle twee twee twee, tweedle anything you can, For I'm going to be a soldier when I get to be a man! By permission of the Author.

Charles Keeler

Do you respond to a drum as Mr. Keeler says he does? Can you read this piece as if you gave your successive ideas a decided drum beat? Observe that the strong beat is really your phrase accent increased. Make your pauses and your touches very decided. Observe that the vigorous drum beat will not prevent you from changing pitch and from making inflexions.

I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

Alfred Tennyson

One passage may be chosen that will call for more changes of pitch, another that will vary more the direction of inflexion, a third that will vary more the length of inflexion, a fourth that will increase the vigor of the rhythmic pulsations and the phrase accents; but as a rule, any selection demands all of these. We increase any one of them only in order to correct our faults and develop the power of the voice to respond to our thinking and feeling.

Many people cramp the mind and repress it in reading, pronouncing the words only and not thinking or feeling at all. We must enjoy what we read and enter sympathetically into every situation. When we quote from someone we must think and speak as he did. When telling about some event we must imagine ourselves to be witnesses of it, naturally and easily participating in the scene.

Rigidity of the voice is intensified through our repressive habits in imagination, feeling and thinking.

To develop agility of the voice, we must practice on bright and joyous themes, on serious passages, also giving thoughts that are weighty, but with the greatest possible earnestness.

THE BROOK

Little brook! little brook!

You have such a happy look

Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve and crook

And your ripples, one and one,

Reach each other's hands and run

Like laughing little children in the sun!

Little brook, sing to me:

Sing about a bumblebee

That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mumblingly,

Because he wet the film

Of his wings, and had to swim,

While the water bugs raced round and laughed at him!

Little brook-sing a song

Of a leaf that sailed along

Down the golden-braided centre of your current swift and strong,

And a dragon fly that lit

On the tilting rim of it,

And rode away and was n't scared a bit.