Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845,

By JAMES E. MURDOCH and WILLIAM RUSSELL,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

TILDEN LIBRARY

1895

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES,

WASHINGTON STREET.

ΤΟ

DR. JAMES RUSH,

WHOSE WORK ON

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN VOICE,

HAS RENDERED DEFINITE AND EXACT INSTRUCTION PRACTICABLE IN

ELOCUTION;

THE FOLLOWING MANUAL

IS

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

THE design of the exercises presented in this manual, is, to furnish the groundwork of practical elocution, and whatever explanations are needed for the training of the organs, and the cultivation of the voice. The system of instruction, adopted in the present volume, is founded on Dr. Rush's treatise, "The Philosophy of the Human Voice," and is designed as a practical synopsis of that work, with the addition of copious examples and exercises, selected for the purpose of facilitating the application of theory to practice. We hope, however, that the use of this manual will induce students and teachers to consult, for themselves, that invaluable source of instruction, for an ample and complete statement of the theory of vocal culture, in connexion with an exact analysis of the vocal functions.

The manual now offered as an aid to the business of instruction, contains, besides a compendious view of the system of Dr. Rush,

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the practical methods of instruction, which the authors of the present work have adopted in their personal modes of teaching elocution: one having devoted his chief attention to that part of the science which comprises phonation, and orthophony, or the training of the vocal organs, on the rudiments of articulation and "expression," including the organic discipline of "vocal gymnastics; and the other having occupied himself, principally, with instruction in reading and declamation, and the applications of elocution to grammar, rhetoric, and prosody.

The exercises imbodied in the following pages, are designed equally for the assistance of two classes of students, at very different stages of progress in general education, but requiring, alike, the benefit of a thorough-going course of practice in elocution; - young learners, whose habits of utterance are, as yet, forming; and adults, whose professional duties involve the exercise of public speaking. To the former this manual will furnish the materials for a progressive cultivation and development of the vocal

organs, for the useful purposes of education, and as a graceful accomplishment. To the latter it affords the means of correcting erroneous habit in the use of the organs of speech, and of acquiring the command of an easy, healthful, and effective mode of managing the voice, in the act of reading or speaking in public.

The plan adopted, in arranging the subsequent exercises, presents the various departments of elocution in the following order: 1. The study of the VOCAL ORGANS. -2. The function of BREATHING, as a preliminary to the use of the voice.. - 3. The practice of ENUNCIATION, in the act of articulating elementary sounds and syllables, and of pronouncing words. 4. The study of the various "L QUALITIES" of the voice, as an instrument of sound, and the training of the organs, with reference to the formation of "purity,” fulness, vigor, and pliancy of voice. - 5. The study and practice of FORCE, "STRESS," "MELODY," pitch, "slide,” “wave,' ," "monotone," and "semitone," 99 66 TIME, quantity,' movement," ‚” “rhythm,” metre and pause,with a view to organic discipline and the command of the voice, in EMPHASIS and " EXPRESSION," — the appropriate utterance of thought and emotion.

99 66

To adapt the work to the purposes of practical instruction, and to render it convenient, as a class-book, those parts which are most important to learners, are distinguished by "leaded" lines; and these are intended either to be impressed, in substance, on the memory, or to be practised as exercises. The portions of the work which are not leaded, contain the theory and the explanations requisite for the guidance of the adult student and the teacher.

The sentential or grammatical department of elocution, that which concerns the modifications of voice, for the purposes of strictly intellectual communication, the adapting of the voice to the structure of sentences in prose, and stanzas in poetry, involves a more extensive study of "slides," (inflections,) emphasis, and pausing, together with prosodial elocution, or the regulation of the voice in the reading of verse. The full discussion and practice of these branches, are reserved for a separate course of study, as prescribed in the "American Elocutionist," to which the present manual is intended as an introduction. In that volume will also be found an extended course of practice in articulation and in pronunciation, with remarks on the character of cadence; and, in addition to the vocal part of elocution, an outline of the principles of gesture, and a collection of pieces for practice in reading and declamation.