Excerpt from A Plea for Spoken Language: An Essay Upon Comparative Elocution, Condensed From Lectures Delivered Throughout the United States NO art or science ever sprang into existence in a full state of perfection. Each must have its be ginnings, rude and simple, and only reach a condi tion of complete development through 'gradual, oftentimes slow and discouraging, growth. This is exemplified in the history of the origin and progress of music, which proceeded slowly, from the simplest beginnings, through long periods of time in which it languished, was utterly neglected, and finally rose again to advance In triumph toward the con summation of its powers. The progress of a science, through its various stages, is always the outcome of some inherent vital principles, recognized but dimly at first, in some generalistic form. As it advances, however, i'l the course of development brought about by. Time and investigation, it gradually becomes divested of assumption and error, and the mind finally grasps those truths which, in the beginning, had been but vaguely apprehended, and more rapid growth toward final perfection is the result. The history of Elocution in modern times shows that it is no exception to this general law of grad ual development, as I hope to show in the present volume, by tracing the progressive ideas which se cured its advancement, from their origin with the English writers of the last century to their more complete development in the work of an Ameri can author of the present century [dr. James Rush], which marked a new era in the study of spoken language, and placed it upon a firm scientific foot ing it had never before attained. Although Dr. Rush's work, The Philosophy of the Voice, has been acknowledged by the ablest authorities to be founded in truth and expressed in reason, an opinion of its impracticable character has been asserted by those who have not fully comprehended the principles therein set forth; and being thus unacquainted with the practical features Of their application, either elementary or aggregate, they have been disposed to regard it as a merely visionary or learnedly mystified presentation of the nature and functions of audible speech. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.