Our Work: The Mutual Improvement Speakers’ Contest

OUR WORK,

THE MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT SPEAKERS' CONTEST.

BY RICHARD R. LYMAN, SUPERINTENDENT Y. M. M. I. A., SALT LAKE STAKE.

The speakers' contest has been established in the' Salt Lake Stake of Zion, with a hope that soon it will extend to every Mutual Improvement Association in The Church. The design is to have a contest every spring, which all active mutual improvement workers will be urged to enter. The addresses given must be related to, or suggested by, the matter contained in the manual last completed. Following is an outline of the contest conducted this year. All the wards in the stake were urged to hold contests, and all active members were invited to prepare papers. The papers prepared in each ward, were submitted to judges who marked them on thought and composition. If more than five papers were presented to these judges, only the five receiving the highest marks were delivered, because, as each paper may contain two thousand words, more than five speeches would make a program too long for one meeting. When the other set of judges, who gave marks on delivery, submitted their decisions, these marks were added to those previously given, and the person thus obtaining the highest mark was declared the winner, and the one obtaining the mark next below was selected for the alternate. Five of these contesting wards make a district, in which the ward champions meet and compete for places in the final contest to be held in the Assembly hall during the Y. M. M. I. A. general conference, in June. The man taking highest place in this last contest will be awarded a gold medal, presented by the Deseret News, and the man taking second place

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will be given bound volumes one, two and three of the Era, by the General Board. Because many people have good ideas but cannot speak them, and because our young people have so little experience in expressing themselves with pen and paper, amark of sixty is allowed for thought and composition to encourage work in this line, while a mark of but forty may be given for delivery. Many of our missionaries dare not attempt to answer a question or teach the Gospel in writing/and it is hoped that preparing these addresses will give some of the needed practice in written expression. If we may judge the future of these contests by the beginning now made, we can hardly estimate the good they will do. Old men's hearts leaped with joy when they heard the boys speak so lovingly, so earnestly, so patriotically of the early Saints; fathers were happy when their bright-minded, studious sons turned their attention earnestly, perhaps for the first time, to the history of The Church; and young men's bosoms heaved with pride as they sought in vain for words of sufficient eloquence to describe the sterling characters of their fathers. "Not in years," people say, "have we had anything more interesting in our meetinghouse than the talks of those boys." The spirit of these contests is one we are becoming very familiar with of late, it is that spirit which tends to tie the people more closely together, and make them more valient in the performance of their duties. It is hoped that soon, these may be called oratorical contests, and that because of the name, young men will not be kept from taking part in them. An oration is not a speech made up of "fine writing," and long words; it is a dignified address, carefully prepared for a dignified occasion. The speaker who has something of worth to say, and is filled with a burning desire to say it, will give a genuine oration, if he only speaks as he feels, without searching for hard words and figures of speech, remembering that generally the simplest language is the most eloquent. What suggested the contest? It was the matter contained in our last year's manual. Who, that has been born in these valleys; who, that has flowing in him the blood of the pioneers, can study a lesson in that manual without having an oration swell up within him, so that he almost shouts when alone studying? An old, gray-haired man, in a near-by association, adjusting his crooked glasses as he arose to give his topic, began his exercise in words like these, "It is a good thing I was not with The Church in those times, for it is hard to tell what I should have — done why, while preparing my lesson, I could hardly keep my seat, I was so worked up over the treatment the people were given."