The Use of the Tongue

—

The Use of the Tongue

BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS UNIVERSITY

[This is the introductory chapter to a book entitled "The Spoken Word," by the — author a manual of conversation, story-telling, public speaking, and debating. It is now in the press and will soon be on sale. Editors.]

To become proficient in conversation, story-telling, public — speaking, and debating, three things are indispensable abundant practice, careful study of general principles, and constant self- criticism with a view to improvement. — — The first of these plenty of practice lies ready to the hand of any young person in the Church who is at all ambitious to suc- ceed in any of these arts. In conversation, besides the usual opportunities in a social way that fall to the lot of every one, the Latter-day Saint has at least two avenues not open to the lay member of any other church. One of these is ward teaching. Scores of men, young and old, in all our communities visit families every month for the purpose of conversing with them on religious topics. And then there are the house to house visits of the regular missionary away from home. Perhaps the largest and most important part of the foreign missionary's work nowadays consists of conversations at the fire- side. A successful missionary will have a hundred conversations where he will deliver one sermon.Now, since every young man among us may be both a foreign missionary and a ward teacher, there lies before him additional chances for the exercise of the graces of conversation that lend such charm to social intercourse. Then consider the opportunities our young men and women have for the use of the story-teller's art. If they are Sunday school teachers, or teachers in the Primary Association, the Re- ligion Class, or one of the Improvement organizations, they will be called upon to test their ability as story-tellers very frequently, and more frequently as time goes on, since the story is increas- ingly regarded as one of the most powerful and popular means of instruction at our disposal. And nearly every adult among us, as a matter of fact, is in one or more of these organizations. Be- sides, the home is made more of by our people than by others, and who that has anything to do with children in the home, whether in the capacity of parent or uncle or aunt or just a friend to the youngsters, but has to pay a heavy tax for his gift of story-teller ?

THE USE OF THE TONGUE 721

And what mere layman of any other religious demonination has so many opportunities for public speaking as does the average member of the "Mormon" Church? Our preaching being done mainly by the lawyer, the doctor, the teacher, the business man, the farmer, the mechanic, and the man of no particular calling, instead of by a class of men who make preaching a profession, every one in the Church with the least disposition to do so, even women, may obtain practice in this activity out of all proportion to his special training in the art. In the sacrament meetings, in the priesthood quorums, in the auxiliary associations, in the mission field at home and abroad, there's a very great demand for public — speaking. And not only so the demand is increasing every year, not only in quantity but also in quality. Finally, there is debating. If we use the word in its broad sense, there is even more debating within the Church, and always has been, than of story-telling or of preaching as it is generally understood in other churches. "Mormonism," being new to the world, has had to fight its way as no other religious organization has done since the primitive Church, and, fighting its way every- where, it has developed a strong argumentative tone. Almost every gospel conversation is sure to grow into a miniature debate, if it continue long enough. Indeed, "Mormon" sermons, when closely examined, reveal more argument than narration or descrip- tion, or even explanation. Every Latter-day Saint who uses his tongue at all in defense of his faith indulges in informal debate. Here, then, lie opportunities for the practice of the art of oral speech which are not afforded so numerously to young people of any other community. No wonder a non-"Mormon" business man in Utah said before a body of business men not long ago that he believed he would join the "Mormon" Church to get practice in public speaking, so as to overcome his embarrassment every time he spoke in public. If any young person in the Church, therefore, wishes to excel in the various forms of this art let him avail himself of every chance that comes his way to practice it, let him become a teacher, a missionary, a preacher. I know there are writers on public speaking who advise the study of principles first. But this is clearly a mistake. Professor Dewey tells of some boys who had been taught in an old-fash- ioned school to go through the motions of swimming on the dry floor and who replied laconically, when asked what they did when they went into the water, "Sink!" That is the way with one who studies principles over much before he has any practice. Practice should always come first. It constitutes the very founda- tion of any art. We learn to do by doing. No matter how well we may know how to play the piano, to paint a picture, to write an essay, to preach a discourse, we shall never attain even the

beginning of proficiency in these things if we do not actually play

722 IMPROVEMENT ERA the piano, use the brush, the pen, and the tongue. The best ad- vice therefore that can be given to one who wishes to converse well, to tell a good story entertainingly, to speak in public ef- fectively is actually to converse, to tell anecdotes and stories, to speak before an audience, whenever an opportunity presents itself. Thus he will not only be acquiring ease in the use of the tongue, but he will make his mind keen to see and utilize what he needs. If practice alone were enough to give the highest proficiency in an art, the Latter-day Saints would be the best conversation- alists, the best story-tellers, the best preachers, and the best de- baters in the world. But practice is not all that is necessary. One must study also. For there are effective and ineffective ways of doing any given thing. Why do you find the conversation of one person "perfectly charming" and that of another "stupid and dull ?" Why do you listen like a two years' child to the telling of a story by one person and turn a deaf ear to that of another? Why do you strain your attention when this man preaches, and fall asleep over the preaching of that one, or bring on a nervous breakdown trying out of courtesy to keep awake? Partly be- cause of that mysterious something we call personality, for, pri- marily, Captain Delightful pleases us in chit-chat or story or sermon or what not for the simple reason that he is Captain De- lightful and not Theophrastus Dryasdust. But it is partly, too, because he who pleases us in the employment of these arts ob- serves,whether he knows it or not, certain principles that lie at the bottom of the art of speech. For there are in all arts fundamental principles, to observe which is absolutely necessary if we would become proficient therein. Take farming, for instance. What boots it to love the farm ever so ardently, to plant yourself on a quarter-section of land with animals and the necessary utensils, and to plug away till you wear yourself to the bone trying to wrest a living from the earth, if you do not know something about the chemistry of the soil,

the behavior of plants, the economy of effort and product, the availability of the market, and the means and the laws of trans- portation? I am not saying how you shall obtain this knowledge; I am merely insisting that you must have it in order to succeed on

the farm today. Put two men at work in the field, one with, the other without, such information, and you will quickly see the difference gradually working itself out in the situation. What is true of farming is true of any piece of work at which the hand of man expends effort. Can the carpenter use tools without know- ing how to use them? Would you trust the watchmaker to take out your appendix?

THE USE OF THE TONGUE 723

Now, what is true in these things that we do with the hand is even more true of the things that we do with the tongue. There are certain great underlying laws of speech, which one must ob- serve in order to be effective in this art. Of two persons who speak in public, for instance, one is effective, other things being equal, because he observes these laws, and the other is inef- fective because he does not observe them. That is the simple truth. And again, I do not say how or where the successful preacher shall find these laws I am but emphasizing just now the ;

fact that use them he must. And I do not know that there is a better way to do a thing than to be aware of how it is to be done. Of course, some preachers and story-tellers and debaters and even conversationalists, like some farmers and mechanics, pick up the main essentials in their experience. That, however, is a long, a hard, a costly, and generally an ineffective way to acquire them. A farmer may require ten years to discover by this means what his son can learn at school in a single day. And so it may be in the arts we are considering here. One may blunder along the way to success through a series of painful embarrassments, whereas he might attain a higher goal sooner and with less dis- tress and effort by taking advantage of the blunders and successes of those who have gone before. The third requisite to effectiveness in the spoken word is self- criticism looking towards improvement. To attempt a piece of work one wishes to do, even though one should fail utterly, always whets the appetite for any bit of knowledge that may be of aid in a second attempt. It makes the eyes keen to see, to segregate, and to apply. Practice in any art shows us where we lack, a study of the principles of that art shows us how to apply this lack, and the natural desire for efficiency in our sub- in the art will induce us to apply these principles sequent practice. Thus we have the circle completed— practice, study, self-criticism, and practice again. This is an exquisitely delicate instrument, the tongue. Why should we not put forth every effort in our power to train it to brain? do our bidding effectively just as we do the hand and the "The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity," defiling the whole body and setting it on fire of hell. How at its mercy we all are, whether it is our own or another's, like the dry stubble of which the all de- the prophet speaks, this is licked up by the tongue of vouring flame It plays shuttle-cock and battle-dore with ! men s as witness a group of neighbors passing a morsel of character, local gossip from mouth to mouth. It jabs, too, like a sharp-

pointed knife, as in the case of the woman we read of the other day who said to her friend, "Your husband has done so-and-so,' away and shot herself. Idle and he had not, and the wife went says, for which we shall be called to account words, all, Tesus

724 IMPROVEMENT ERA some day. And so the tongue requires to be bridled, so that it shall not say what would best be left unsaid. But it needs also assiduous discipline, so it shall speak when and what it should, and speak with such art as it may command. If, as Jesus declared, we shall be asked to account for every idle word, it is doubtless true, as the astute Franklin says, that we shall also be asked to give an account of every idle silence. For we may lie by not speaking. The character of our friend, or even of our enemy, may be unjustly assailed in our presence, and we may not offer a defense, or come to the rescue of a truth when we see it deliberately warped and twisted out of all recognition. The tongue needs to be fortified against this sort of lie, which we may term the silent lie. And then there are the active duties. It is an extremely delicate task, for instance, this matter of entering the home of another and directing the conversation, as a ward-teacher, in a profitable and interesting channel so that the members, instead of regarding your presence there as an intrusion upon their pri- vacy and being bored in consequence, shall sincerely wish you to come again. Then, too, the ability to tell a story well, or to build up a discourse, or to put a fact plainly and convincingly is not so common as one would think, considering that everybody has a tongue in his head. And so the tongue requires training in con- versation "to take up what others say in easy comment, to give in return something which will please, to stimulate the silent and morose out of their vapors and surprise them into good-humor, to lead while one seems to follow ;" in story-telling, to select and arrange the material not merely to hold the interest but likewise to keep the main line and to make every incident bear on the point to be brought out; in public address, including the debate, to pick what is needed out of a chaos of ideas, leaving what is not required, to organize this material in a clear and coherent and forceful manner with a view to a central thought, and then to express our thought, thus centralized, so that the amber of truth shall be manifest and, if possible, attractive. Than the appropriate and skilful use of the tongue there is no more beautiful and desirable thing in the world of human society. SALT LAKE CITY