Thinking and learning to think by Nathan C. Schaeffer (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📖
- Author: Nathan C. Schaeffer
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The person who is afflicted with hesitation and embarrassment also stands in sore need of the discipline of writing. In the solitude of the home one can take time to find and fix the right word, to weave it into sentences that stand the test of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and to arrange a line of thought from which everything irrelevant is excluded. Embarrassment vanishes with the advent of the feeling that one has something to say. The growth of language, which invariably accompanies the evolution and clarification of thought, corrects hesitation. Soon the hands drop to the side or obey the will in gesture, and the feeling of ease begins to color the delivery. Nothing more beneficial can happen to a young preacher than the call to preach the same discourse a number of times in succession, each time to a different audience. Repetition will make him a master of the train of ideas, improving his phraseology, and deeping the stream of thought. Who has not watched with delight the improvement in the presentation of a lecture heard from the same lips half a dozen times in succession? The change for the better was due to the deepening, straightening, and improvement of the channel in which the stream of thought seems to flow.
If a student several times each month during a college course writes out and fixes a line of argument for a debate, he can acquire the power to fix and retain the thoughts as fast as he writes. The habit of memorizing the words is, of course, pernicious, because it is apt to make him the slave of his manuscript, to destroy his freedom in meeting the blows of an antagonist, and to divest him of the glow of feeling and animation which gives force to the delivery while the mind is engaged in the elaboration of the argument. The sequence of ideas rather than of words should be fixed in the mind, very much as the student of Euclid fixes in his mind, not the words, but the ideas which constitute the chain of proof. This kind of practice gives a young speaker the sense of security without destroying his freedom in modifying the line of thought while standing upon his feet.
From this point of view the folly of much criticism in teaching is very apparent. The current of thought is frequently interrupted by drawing attention at the wrong time to mistakes in grammar and errors of pronunciation. The proper time for such criticism is after the movement of thought has reached the goal; and even then the critic should not call attention to too many defects at one time; otherwise the effect will be to discourage and bewilder the pupil.
The stream of thought is the most essential thing in writing, speaking, and oral reading. The management of face and hands and feet, the postures of the body, and the vocal utterance should, of course, not be neglected. The intelligent counsel of a good friend is needed to point out mannerisms and eccentricities. The practice prescribed by a wise teacher is helpful in pruning the delivery of defects and harmful habits which are sure to grow where attention to the thought sinks the delivery into the subconscious realm. Nevertheless, the main thing in writing and speaking is the stream of thought. A profound truth was stated by the Kentucky backwoodsman, who said that he would have it in him to become as great an orator as Henry Clay, were it not that he found himself lacking in two things: Whenever a favorable opportunity for a great speech presented itself he never knew what to say nor how to say it. The how is more easily acquired than the what. Both should receive attention, from the kindergarten to the university. The getting of something to say is invention. It is the one thing in which special teachers and special courses give least help. The power of invention is acquired by years of effort and discipline. Tributaries from many sources must pour into the stream of thought before it becomes full, copious, and capable of carrying great thoughts, or of supplying the motive power for great undertakings.
In writing nothing should be allowed to interfere with the stream of thought. Some can write in the midst of noise. Others must seek silence and solitude. Gifted men like Horace Greeley can write in the cars, upon the knee, anywhere. Habit has much to do with the art of composing. In any event, the stream of thought must be kept flowing. In so far as the rules of grammar, logic, rhetoric have become unconscious guiding principles, they do not interfere with the evolution of thought. In so far as they absorb the attention and hinder the flow of thought, they should be cast to the winds during the first glow of writing. Better think of these during the process of rewriting, polishing, and correcting.
So great a thinker and successful a writer as Charles Darwin makes the following suggestive statement concerning his own methods of composing:
“There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind, leading me to put at first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.”[41]
No one should speak as he writes, nor should any one write as he speaks. Few men are satisfied with the stenographic report of a speech, exactly true to the language at the time of delivery. A reporter who cannot make a speech read better, without changing the line of thought, than if it were printed exactly as spoken is not a master of the art of reporting. Written discourse abounds in longer sentences, in more involved constructions, in forms of diction which please the eye, but are too cumbersome for the voice and the ear. The public speaker is prone to use short, simple sentences in which the subject of the sentence does not pass out of the mind before the predicate is reached. His style abounds in questions which arrest the attention of the hearer; if necessary, he indulges in colloquial expressions to which the ears of the hearer are accustomed, thereby bringing himself nearer the common people.
Upon a speech delivered in the British Parliament high praise was bestowed in the hearing of Mr. Fox. “Does it read well?” he inquired. “Yes, grandly,” was the reply. “Then,” said he, “it was not a good speech.” It may be difficult to point out exactly wherein speaking differs from writing so far as the stream of thought is concerned; yet one feels the difference. Austin Phelps shows the difference by using an extract from an essay on the “End of God in Creation:”
“What was the final cause of creation? The transition from the unconditioned to the conditioned is incomprehensible by the human faculties. What that transition is, and how it could take place, and how it became an actualized occurrence, it is confessed on all hands are absolutely incomprehensible enigmas. We cannot reasonably imagine, then, that, if we are thus ignorant of the nature and mode of this stupendous fact, we can nevertheless comprehend its primitive ground, can explore its ultimate reasons, can define its final motive. Nor can we think to unveil the infinite soul at that moment when, according to our conceptions, the eternal uniformity was interrupted and a new mode of being, absolutely unintelligible to us, was first introduced. We cannot think to grasp all the views which were present to that soul, extending from the unbeginning past to the unending future, and to fathom all its purposes, and to analyze all its motives. If anywhere, we must here repel everything like dogmatic interpretation of the phenomena, and admit whatever is put forth only as conjectural in its nature, or, at all events, partial, and belonging far more to the surface than to the interior of the subject.”
One can easily see how ill adapted to oral delivery these sentences are. Phelps throws the same leading thoughts and succession of thoughts into a form adapted for public speaking:
“Why did God create the universe? Creation is incomprehensible to man. What is creation? How was it possible? How did it ever come to be? I cannot answer. Can you? Every man of common sense confesses his ignorance here. But if we are ignorant of what creation is, and how it is, can we imagine that we understand why it is? Shall we think to unveil the mind of God in the stupendous act? That moment when God said ‘Let there be light’ was a moment of which we can know nothing but that ‘there was light.’ Shall we think to see all that God saw? Can we look through the past without beginning, and the future without end, and fathom all His purposes and all His motives? Can we, by searching, find out God? If we must repel assertion anywhere, we must do so here. Whatever we may think, it is but little more than guess-work. At the best it can be but knowing in part. The most we can know must be on the surface. It cannot penetrate to the heart of the matter.”[42]
The plan of writing down a line of discussion helps to clarify the thought. Casting aside the manuscript as soon as the sequence of ideas is fixed in the mind emancipates the speaker from the written page. Several years of practice develop two kinds of style, one adapted for writing, the other for speaking. After this stage of development is reached, it may be no longer necessary to formulate on paper every line of argument. Nevertheless, the pen cannot be laid aside entirely without detriment to the quality of the thought and the effectiveness of oral discourse.
Everything calculated to interfere with the stream of thought should, so far as possible, be eliminated from the act of composing. Some men find the pen an irksome drain upon their energy and vitality. Their thought moves faster than they can write. The employment of a stenographer aids them in the work of composing. The danger against which they must guard is a growing dislike to the use of the pen, and a deterioration of their style resulting in the obliteration of the difference which distinguishes effective speaking from successful writing.
There is a radical difference between a lecture and an oration. Public speaking which partakes of the nature of the lecture, aiming primarily at instruction or the communication of knowledge, may be assisted by experiments, by maps, charts, and pictures upon the screen, by specimens and models designed to throw light upon the theme under discussion. Public speaking which partakes of the nature of oratory, its aim being to move the will to action, is generally limited in the appliances it can utilize, and in the way it must appeal to the hearer. It must not exhaust the attention of the hearer by consuming his time in the establishment of principles, and in showing, by lengthy details, how results are obtained. Far better is it to cite authorities, to quote their language if necessary, and to make the application to the case in hand. In referring to recognized standards, like a dictionary, a treatise on law, or the Sacred Scriptures, it is always best to quote the exact words. This is also more appropriate on the written
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