is simple enough in the telling; hardly so in the application. It is this: relax whatever muscles are not needed to accomplish the thing you are trying to do. Use enough energy in the legs to stand on, and no more; those muscles which by their opposition cause the trembling at the knees must be relaxed; the legs must be content to stand and not run. Reduce the extra muscular tension in the back and hips; so also the tension of the arms, hands, and especially of the neck and face.

The cure for those speakers whose fright is genuine and extreme and seemingly hopeless is in beginning to speak while limp all over, except for the vocal apparatus. Start freed of any possible excess of muscular tension. Then gradually add a stiff back, legs strong enough to hold the body, arms falling just in place, but nothing more. Do the same with the rest of the muscle systems -hands, neck, and face. Practise this sort of thing until you have achieved control over each of these systems and can throw each into or out of gear as you please. Such control is the essence of intellectuality, mental strength, self-possession. It is the opposite extreme from the baby's general explosion; for he lives in a constant state of stage fright. This is the case even when he howls, for one of the surest manifestations of fright in some green speakers is a disposition to roar. The cure is far from easy, either for the baby or for the student; but except for psychopaths it is entirely possible always.

Audiences Chiefly Sympathetic.-One other bit of advice for the frightened novice is valuable; your audience will not hurt you. Not one audience in ten thousand ever does anything unpleasant or harmful to the speaker. In all probability your audience is just as anxious as you to see you stand up like a man and do well. But they positively do not throw things or cause injury; not

in your kind of society. So trust their good will and satisfy their prayers for you. Faith in them and faith in yourself are the best mental cures, to be applied with the bodily cure outlined above. The two combined ought to work salvation in even the worst of cases.

ASSIGNMENTS

Constant Practice Necessary.-Grace and strength can be acquired only by constant practice and study of one's actions. Learn to criticize your own movements and know what you are doing in practice. Get your limbs and body so well in hand that your whole body automatically reacts to what is going on in your mind. Cultivate that coördination between body and mind that suits the action to the word in the right degree of both ease and strength. Learn to think with your hands, trunk, legs, and neck. Make your movements expressive of the meaning you have in your mind. Work before a mirror and observe what you look like while in action.

1. Image situations into which you might be thrust and then get the right bodily set to meet them. In every case aim to be energetic enough to suggest the thought you have in mind, but watch yourself to see that you are not indulging in an over-use of stiffened muscles. Study every limb and joint to see if it is playing its part in getting the right coördination. Work for automatic action. Image yourself

accusing some one

defying a mob

pleading for your life or the life of another

facing an object of great frightfulness or danger

asking a friend for a favor

refusing some one's petition

insisting that you are right

demanding that men listen to you

uttering a protest

warning one of danger

pointing out the truth of the matter

telling how it all happened.

2. Do a moving-picture act. Devise a story that you can carry by means of movement alone, and try to act it so that it suggests to observers the meaning you intend. Keep studying yourself to learn where your restrictions or excesses lie; then try by repetition of the

action to overcome them. Continually work to get a coördination between your mental processes and bodily action. Notice how much more easily the mind works when the body is rightly set for your thought. Also observe that feelings of reserve, bashfulness, and awkwardness wear off as you gain facility in getting body and mind to work in unison and harmony.

3. While viewing exciting picture plays, games, circus, or vaudeville, or any other kind of alert bodily movement, observe the tensions and strains in your own body.

Analyze these and describe them.

4. Stand as before an audience and ascertain as far as possible what is the best combination of ease and strength necessary to a good platform presence.

5. Indulge in any exercise that brings into play a large number of the muscles of the body; games, gymnastics, setting-up exercises, esthetic dancing. All such activities help greatly in removing inhibitions from the mechanism of speech. These are always carefully cultivated in special schools for expression and acting, and are at the bottom of much of their most successful work.

6. Prepare a three-minute speech. Deliver it with interest and enthusiasm; keep the body meanwhile relaxed enough for ease, but tensed enough for the energy you feel and wish to show.

Suggested topics:

(a) A Needed College Reform.

(b) A National Need; A State Need; A Municipal Need.

(c) My Political Hero.

(d) What Religion Will Do for You.

(e) Better Business Ethics Needed.

(f) Reform the Law.

(g) Stand by the Team.

(h) Vote for Our Candidate.

(i) Take Your Work More Seriously.

7. Commit and recite a passage of literature good for public reading; learn it well enough so that you can give considerable attention while reciting it to what the body is doing. Stand erect, with a proper balance between ease and strength.

8. Fix on an odd character you know; devise three sentences that reveal his nature, using dialect and special idiom if need be; then adopt a characteristic action for each sentence.

9. Practise adjusting yourself to a table, stand, or reading-desk on the platform. Learn how to keep a hand on it without seeming to be weak, or limp, or sick. Also learn to get away from it without creating the impression that you are afraid of it.

10. Practise the use of books to read from lying on a table or desk; or an outline on cards or papers. Move about freely and comfortably, yet with dignity and definiteness.

In these exercises do not be concerned only with making your position just what it ought to be. Concern yourself also with realizing the need of coöperation of body and thought mechanism. Make it your effort to get as far on toward ease and strength as you can without having to pay specific attention to any particular muscle, joint, or limb. Make it strictly an exercise in getting the whole organism to work together.

V

POSTURE, MOVEMENT, GESTURE

WE have seen that the body is the basis of speech; without bodily competence there is small likelihood of competency in speaking and reading. Also the messages sent out by the body become important because they are sent earliest and are read with great facility by the majority of people. Next we come to an analysis of the uses of action in practice.

Freeing the Body Essential.-Practice in freeing the body can be of profit to all students of speech. For those who are already competent thinkers, with many interesting things to talk about and with obedient and capable voice mechanism, exercise of the body removes the last bar between the speaker's meaning and his auditors. For those who think slowly, who are not sure of their message, practice in bodily expressiveness helps to free the thinking mechanism and to clarify the meaning. For those who find their chief troubles in their voices, action helps invigorate the blood, relax the tight restricting vocal muscles, and resolves the emotional complexes that are the chief causes of voice inadequacy.

Muscular Exercise Cures Emotionality.-Earnest and faithful practice in gaining mastery of legs, back, head, arms, and hands is the best method known of curing complexes. An emotional complex-any case of too high nervous tension, over-aggressiveness, erratic con