BOOK NOTICES

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 13, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 31.

"How to Attract and Hold an Audience," a popular treatise on the nature, preparation, and delivery of public discourse. By J. Berg Esenwein, A.M., Lit.D., professor of the English language and literature in the Pennsylvania Military College. Hinds, Noble & Eldridge, publishers, 31 W. 15th St., New York City. Price $1.00.

The aim of this little volume is to set forth in a scientific and easily understood way the theory of spoken discourse,—the preparation of the discourse, the preparation of the speaker, and the delivery. These are considered under various chapter headings, as "The Nature of Public Speech," "The Forms of Discourse," "Building Up and Breaking Down of Arguments," "Kinds of Public Discourse," "Various Kinds of Oratory," "Originality," "How to Acquire an Oratorical Vocabulary," "Style in Public Discourse," etc. The book contains a digest of rhetorical rules, the necessity of mental preparation, preparation for expression of voice, etc., etc. It has four appendixes, outlines of oration, model orations, one hundred subjects for orations repeated in the Appendix D. The little volume contains most excellent instruction and suggestions to those who wish to become acceptable public speakers, and it puts it in a straightforward, common sense way.