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port. Among the numerous colleges with which our country abounds, there is not, perhaps, a single one endowed with a professorship of Elocution! And among our numerous public speakers, how small a number can deliver a discourse without having half the body concealed by a desk or table! The orators of classic Greece never ensconced themselves behind elevated desks, nor "stood upon all fours," as some of our public speakers do they were masters of their art. Hence they needed no screen to conceal uncouth attitudes and awkward gestures from the scrutinizing eye of criticism; nor had occasion to present the crown of the head, instead of the face, to the audience, to hide the blush of ignorance: they exposed the whole person to the audience; they stood erect, in all the dignity of conscious worth; their attitudes were fit models for the statuary; their gestures were replete with grace and expression; their elocution defied criticism.

Let us endeavour to restore Elocution to its former place in the department of useful instruction. Nothing is wanted but a correct medium, laudable ambition, and common industry, to enable our American youth to rival those ancient orators whose eloquence, it is said, "shook distant thrones, and made the extremities of the earth tremble."

ANDREW COMSTOCK.

Philadelphia, November 20, 1841.

NOTE.

* See Figure 1, page 70.

The Figures which illustrate the subject of this work, were drawn and engraved by Croome and Minot; the Diagrams were engraved by Mumford.

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Account Current..

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.Knox 356

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