READING AND SPEAKING. Reading is the delivery of language from writing; speaking is the utterance of spontaneous composition. Reading is merely mechanical when words are intelligibly but unimpressively delivered; and it is oratorial in effect when the sentiment proper to the utterance is expressed by pauses, tones, emphasis, etc. Recitation from memory is another form of reading, the matter being delivered from a mental transcript. This mode is highly favorable to oratorical effect, but it is limited in application, and untrustworthy where exactness of phraseology is important. Speaking from spontaneous composition is the highest form of oratory. The qualities requisite for these arts are very different.
To read well involves a perfect understanding of the construction of sentences, and ability to analyze complex forms of composition, and discriminate between essential and expletive words; it also involves a nice perception of the qualities of modulation, and their relation to expressiveness, together with ability to regulate the voice so as to suit the sound to the sense. The study of the art of reading is thus valuable as a means of improvement in composition, as well as for its influence in refining the taste, and exercising all the faculties of perception, expression, and adaptation.
In good reading. the thoughts of the writer must first be taken into the reader's mind. and then delivered as the writer himself might have uttered them immediately on their conception. Children, when set to read language above their comprehension, are of necessity' merely mechanical readers; and in this way they acquire habits of unintelli gent reading, which are seldom perfectly thrown off in after-life. In silent reading, or the perusal of language for our own information, we gather the sense as we proceed. and correct misapprehensions by reflection; in reading aloud for the information of others. we must perfectly comprehend the matter before we liner it, so as to avoid misleading the hearer. A practiced reader can, no doubt, exercise sufficient prevision at the lime of reading, by keeping his eye in advance of his utterance, to read any ordinary composi tion fairly at first sight; but for public reading this would be insufficient. Whatever is
to be read in public should first be well studied in private. The reader thus knowing definitely what he has to express, will give forth no sounds, and his manner will have the freedom of memoriter delivery, without the disadvantage of its constraint neon the mind. His whole attention will lie concentrated on the object of his readirig, the effective conveyance of the matter and spirit of the composition. The 'presence of the book before him will be necessary chiefly to give confidence, and prevent the possi.
bility of rambling. The eye, assisted by memory, will take in clauses and even sentences at a glance, so that it inay be freely raised during utterance. if the eye of a reader is fixed on the book, he seems to be perusing it for his own information; hut if he look his hearers in the face, as, with due preparation, he should he able to do, his delivery may have all the qualities of spontaneous oratory, and he to the hearers speaking rather than reading. This effectiveness; is rarely exemplified, because the requirements for public reading are so little understood, and so habitually neglected in our systems of education. The tameness, monotony, and rhythmical sing-song so generally associated with reading, have created a prejudice against the use of " paper" in pulpit addresses, in consequence of which, in some churches, the practice of reading sermons is discountenanced, while in others it is positively interdicted. The quality of sermons, as compositions, is seri ously impaired under such circumstances; but the cure for bad readipg—against which the prejudice is directed—is good reading. All men cannot be orators, but all may be taught to read oratorically; and were students trained in this art, the ser vices of the church would be rendered far more attractive and influential. In the absence of this training, preachers are the most ineffective of public speakers; and discourses prepared to be delivered from memory are among the meanest specimens of literary com p() itions.