elements of nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction, they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. A man may be a master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has the living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony springs forth at his touch! And if you can electrify an audience by the power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!

The Individual as a Power Plant

Melville W. Mix

This is an up-to-date, straight-from-the-shoulder business talk. Tell the illustrative story in a perfectly natural manner; then, in the application contained in the last paragraph, make your delivery simply direct, strong talk.

ONCE during the argument in a lawsuit, in which Lincoln represented one party, the lawyer on the other side was a glib talker but not reckoned as deeply profound or much of a thinker. He would say anything to a jury which happened to enter his head. Lincoln, in his address to the jury, referring to this, said: "My friend on the other side is all right, or would be all right, were it not for the peculiarity I am about to chronicle. His habit -of which you have witnessed a very painful specimen in his argument to you in this case-of reckless assertion and statements without grounds, need not be imputed to him as a moral fault, or as

telling of a moral blemish. He can't help it. For reasons which, gentlemen of the jury, you and I have not the time to study here, as deplorable as they are surprising, the oratory of the gentleman completely suspends all action of his mind. The moment he begins to talk, his mental operations cease. I never knew of but one thing which compared with my friend in this particular. That was a small steamboat. Back in the days when I performed my part as a keel-boatman, I made the acquaintance of a trifling little steamboat which used to bustle and puff and wheeze about the Sangamon River. It had a five-foot boiler and a seven-foot whistle, and every time it whistled it stopped."

There must always be some balance in a steam plant; for the blowing of the whistle all the time, however much pressure there may be behind it, won't get anywhere. And so it is with this wonderfully contrived power plant made up of the various parts of the human body. If the boiler isn't big enough to do the useful work relative between our steaming and whistling ability, we are sure to fail. If we get physically knocked out, we are not on the job at the required time, we don't produce the business we should, and we may cause a loss to some one else through personal deficiency and incapacity that we could control if we would realize to what extent we have that power within ourselves. You often meet men who give you the impression of a runaway power plant -bustling, storming around like an engine without

a governor, blowing away at every joint, making noise like one hundred miles an hour and going about ten. Sometimes you wonder if they are not running backwards.

Remember this: You are the engineer of your own steam plant; you must direct the forces there generated; you must look out for the losses, for the direction thereof into channels and through media that produce motion, power, and thus perform good work. As you fail, the boiler inspector may appear on the job and condemn you for the purpose employed and put you on the slide to the junk dealer. Do you want that to happen? Is it not strange that in youth, especially, we do not give more careful and consistent attention to the condition of our own power plant? Don't feed the engine poor fuel.

Think about it.

Tighten up oc

casionally the loose screws and bolts. Keep the machine well oiled. Don't wear it out in "joy rides," but give it proper rest as well as proper action. In short, let us give due attention to keeping ourselves physically fit.

Education and Trade

Woodrow Wilson

This is taken from a speech delivered at a banquet of the National League of Commission Merchants, New York, January, 1912. Get on good terms with your audience by bringing out the humor contained in the opening of this speech. Do not fail to make a rather long but natural pause after giving the limerick. The paragraph next to the last is largely argumentative,—an appeal to the intellect, -and should be spoken accordingly. The last paragraph is an ap peal to the emotions, and should be delivered in moderate to slow rate, with a round, full-"orotund"-tone.

IN facing this audience, there are two reasons why I am embarrassed: one is, that there is so much to attract the eye, and the other is that it distracts the thought. I am reminded by contrast of a limerick which runs as follows:

For beauty I am not a star,

There are others more handsome by far,
But my face, I don't mind it,

For I am behind it,

It's the people in front that I jar.

However, I venture to offer some suggestions on the subject assigned me, "Business and Politics." Do you realize what business life in America means? It means the constant readjustment to new conditions. And in order to keep our civilization in repair, in order to keep our trade good and to keep our industries vigorous, we have got to change them every month of our lives. Everything depends upon some nice process for which you have to employ experts, and you must look to the scientific schools of the country to enable you

to advance a single inch. You have got to hire training; you have got to employ knowledge; you have got to give salaries to science in order to accomplish anything in America; and now you are finding, those of you who are manufacturers, that you did not even know how to keep your cost sheets; that you can not tell what a particular division of your business costs you, and whether it pays its own expenses or not; that you have not yet studied those niceties of readjustment, those niceties of management, which mean the difference between big or little profits or no profits at all, and that from this time on you have to employ those brains which devote themselves to the niceties of detail.

Do you know who are the leaders of mankind? The leaders of mankind are those who lift their vision from the dusty road under their feet and look forward, and though they are determined to keep a firm footing upon the road they nevertheless gladden their eyes with the illuminated distance, to those regions which seem to rise and rise, level by level, promising happier days for mankind, easier lives, more sympathy, more co-operation, more perfect mutual understanding, more common trust, more enthusiasm, more partisanship of what is good, more hatred of what is not good, more contempt for shams, more confidence in realities. They will redeem us from our errors and our mistakes, will show us that to open our eyes is to enlarge our trust, and will convince us that to lead men upon a great process of change is to keep