)
All these considerations, and manifold more connected with
them--innumerable considerations, resulting from observation of the
world at this moment--have led many people to doubt of the salutary
effect of vocal education altogether. I do not mean to say it should
be entirely excluded; but I look to something that will take hold
of the matter much more closely, and not allow it slip out of our
fingers, and remain worse than it was. For if a good speaker--an
eloquent speaker--is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid
kind of object in creation? (Loud cheers.) Of such speech I hear all
manner and kind of people say it is excellent; but I care very little
about how he said it, provided I understand it, and it be true.
Excellent speaker! but what if he is telling me things that are
untrue, that are not the fact about it--if he has formed a wrong
judgment about it--if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right
conclusion in regard to the matter? An excellent speaker of that kind
is, as it were, saying--"Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded
of the thing that is not true, come hither.
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