II. FAULTS IN READING AND SPEAKING. Few persons read naturally; that is, with such tones, pauses, accents, etc., as would be given by the same persons in conversational speech. The general tendency is towards monotony. The level uniformity with which words are ranged before the eye on the printed page, seems to influence the voice to a corresponding sameness of pitch. The inflexions tend to a continuative rise, in accordance with the feeling that each clause is only part of a visible sentence, and each sentence only part of a visible paragraph. A good reader will pronounce clauses and sentences as if each of them stood alone. The influence of preceding thoughts will be manifest in his delivery; but subsequent sentences will be ignored as completely as though he did not see them, and had no knowledge of their purport. Thought by thought is the principle of reading, as it is necessarily of speaking.

Good reading requires a steady eye, to prevent confusion of line with line. A wandering eye is a common cause of blundering. A reader with this habit might cure himself by using a mask over the page, exposing, through a slit, only one line at a time. Indeed, all reading would be improved in natural expression by the imaginary employment of such a covering over all but the clause in process of being read.

The mode of utterance which is generally used in conversational speech is quite unfitted for public address. Few persons are aware of this fact, or of their own condition in this respect, until they attempt to speak before a large audience. The habitual elision of vowels and the running together of words, which are not intolerable only because not altogether unintelligible in ordinary conversation, can

not be understood from the platform. The speaker seems to masticate or swallow his words, instead of forming them for the benefit of the listeners. The throat-sounds, which are of secondary importance in conversation where even a whisper may suffice for communication, are the most important elements in public speaking.

In private speech, the syllables of words are not individually presented to the ear, but a conglomerate of sounds intended to mean a series of words is delivered with a single impulse of voice. An example-noted from the utterance of a fairly good speaker-may be quoted as an illustration. What was intended, was "Shall I give you some more?" What was heard (and understood) was: "Shligvūsmore?"

In public speaking, every syllable must have its own vocal sound, and the rate of utterance should be more deliberate than in conversation; while the voice should be resonant and sustained, in proportion to the distance over which the auditors are distributed.

The

Public speaking is analogous to scene-painting. effects have to be projected to a distance, and they must be made correspondingly strong to be properly apprehended by the mass of hearers. The style of utterance adapted to be distinctly heard over a large area would be disagreeably intense to a single listener, just as a picture to be viewed from a distance, looks coarse and patchy to a near inspector. But the faint outlines and delicate shadings of a gallery-picture would be thrown away, because invisible, on a theatrical curtain; and the soft effects of conversational speech are equally lost and unappreciated, because inaudible, on the platform.

III. ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION.

One of the results of the inadequate alphabet by which the English language is written is that the pronunciation of a word cannot be gathered from the spelling, but that a special directory is needed in the form of a "Pronouncing Dictionary." The fact is very remarkable in connection with an alphabetically written language; for the mere analysis of a word into its letters ought to be the same as the analysis of the sound of the word into its phonetic elements. The very purpose of alphabetic writing is defeated when this result is not obtained. Verbal combinations of letters form pictures to the accustomed eye, and we learn to recognise them from habit, and smaller groups of letters have varying sounds in different words without much perplexing us, because each word has its own pictorial aspect; but when we meet with a familiar group of letters in an unfamiliar word, we do not know which one of the many sounds of the group is the one intended to be used. We become accustomed to common words and are not liable to mistakes in pronouncing them; but the commonest words present a perpetual puzzle to foreigners. A native speaker will read without confusion that "the bishop had met with a mishap;" but a stranger to the language might justifiably pronounce the sentence: "the bish-op had met with a mish-ap," or, "the bis-hop had met with a mis-hap." We discriminate the three sounds of ng in the sentence "the singer lingers in danger;" but a foreigner might very naturally read the letters with a uniform sound, as "the sing-er ling-ers in dang-er;" or, "the sing-(g)er ling (g)ers in dang-(g)er;" or, "the sin-jer lin-jers in dan-jer;" or he might show his accomplishment by imitating our intermixture of the different sounds and say: "the sin-jer ling-ers in dang-(g)er."

We use one letter for the two sounds in candle and cellar; one letter for the three sounds in game, gem and giraffe; and one combination of letters for the three sounds in character, charm and chaise; but a child might pardonably read of "a candle in a kellar,” instead of a cellar; or of "a kild being taken for a karming drive in a kaise," instead of a child taken for a charming drive in a chaise. Our sounds are continually playing hide and seek with the letters; we find them nowhere (now here), and when we look again they are nowhere (nowhere).

These illustrations show something of the source of the difficulty attending the regulation of the pronunciation of English. The reader will notice that English pronunciation and the pronunciation of English are two different things. English pronunciation refers to characteristics peculiar to Anglican speakers; the pronunciation of English refers to the phonetic characteristics of the language wherever spoken.

Speech is made up of phrases, phrases of words, words of syllables, and syllables of elementary sounds, or of letters, according as our analysis is phonetic or orthographic. In correcting any faults, or acquiring any excellences, the shortest way is to begin with ultimate elements. On the principle of the old economical maxim: "Take care of the pence and the pounds will look after themselves," if we are careful to make our elementary sounds of standard quality, our syllables, words and phrases will need little special attention. Unfortunately, this is a point respecting which few of our pronouncing dictionaries offer any guidance. For example, the sounds of the vowels are called long, short, broad, close, obtuse, obscure, etc.; but if a reader wishes to know the characteristic quality of any given vowel he is simply referred to a key-word. Thus "long a,"