But study alone will not make a good or even an acceptable speaker,
unless there is added also a period of careful practice. There are
many men of learning whose faculty for speaking is so limited that
their awkwardness is more conspicuous than their knowledge. The Lyceum
may be made a school of practice. The business should not be limited
to topics that do not excite feeling. The contests of the world rest
largely upon feeling, often degenerating into mere passion. Those
who are to take part in such contests should learn at an early period
of life to control their feelings and passions. Such benign results
can be reached only by experience. Let the debates of the Lyceum deal
with questions of living interest, and those who take part in such
contests will learn to control their feelings and thus prepare
themselves for the business of life.
John P. Robinson, of Lowell, was the best equipped member of the House
of 1842. He was then in the prime of life in years, but already
somewhat impaired. He was a thoroughly educated man, a trained lawyer,
of considerable experience in country practice--a practice which
renders the members of the profession more acute than the practice of
cities. In the country the controversies are about small matters
relatively, but the clients are deeply interested, the neighborhood
is enlisted on one side or the other, and the attendance at court of
the friends of the parties is often large.
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