this came a piece of good advice: "Have some narrative in many parts of your speech; and sometimes let there be none at the beginning of it."'16 All of this means that the philosopher had been backed against a wall of hard facts. As a teacher of rhetoric he was compelled to set down what he read in the texts, what he himself must have taught, and what he heard from the platform.. Now Theodorus was the man who not only read and heard, and practiced, but who dared to originate terms for the usages of oratory. Why call the terms invented by the Byzantine 'idle and frivelous,' ‘vain and empty'? Why regard them as grand divisions?\ Would it not be more sensible to consider them useful additions to the nomenclature of rhetoric, especially valuable to a teacher who was analyzing an oratorical effort? That teachers actually used these expressions and many others may be determined from the later rhetorics of the ancients. By the time of Fortunatianus and Capella, eight species of narration had been detected and named, five of them being accredited by Capella to Theodorus. These eight kinds of narration are here given and briefly translated: Certainly the detection of eight kinds of narration would require such a strong rhetorical microscope that our sympathy for the pupils who were forced to such a minute analysis of orations should be aroused. There was, however, a method in the pedagogical madness, a method which Plato failed to grasp. He seemed to regard the whole system of training as a hotch-poteh. At least, his analysis of the rhetorical terms which he' quoted' would indicate carelessness, ignorance, or perversity on his part. For instance, 16 See Chapters 13 and 16 of the third book of the Rhetoric where Aristotle gives way the position taken in the first chapter of the first book; that any one who lays down rules for the narration is theorizing about non-essentials. I. 1. 9; III. 13. 3; 16. 1, 5, 10-11. 17 Halm: Rhet. Min: Fortunatianus, Martianus Capella. Walz: Rhet. Gr. III. 140, 454. in the Phaedrus he directs Socrates to give the parts, the 'niceties', the headings of an oration, (the Rhetorica Kephalaia of the later rhetoricians). Socrates dutifully and correctly begins with the proem and the narrative. Then he goes off at a tangent, for he mentions infallible signs (tekmeria) and probabilities (eikota). Noticing that he is wandering, he comes back into the beaten path, presenting proof and after--proof, refutation and super-refutation. Next ought to come the epilog or conclusion. Instead, however, he perversely enumerates the inventions of Evenus-insinuations, indirect praises, and indirect censures; then the discoveries of Gorgias and Tisias-amplification and minimization, archaization and modernization, conciseness and copiousness-; following up with the terms employed by Polus-diplasiology, gnomology, and eikonology-; on top of those the correct diction of Protagoras and the emotional appeals of Thrasymachus; and finally swinging back into line he says: "All of them agree in asserting that a speech should end in a recapitulation, though they do not all agree to use the same word. 718 Thus did Plato show that he was familiar with the terminology of the rhetoricians. Why then did he jumble a lot of rhetorical terms together while he was discussing the disposition, the arrangement of parts, beginning with the exordium and ending with the peroration? Did he believe all of them were parts of an oration, equal in importance to the craftsman? We are confronted by a mystery. Possibly Plato was lightly tossing the whole paraphernalia of rhetoric into his waste-basket, as he turned to what he considered a more important philosophical subject. His obsession was transferred to his pupil, Aristotle. He also, while enumerating the parts of an oration, condemned the divisions of Theodorus and made light of the terms invented by Licymnius-"Speeding on," " "Digression," and "Ramification." He failed to observe that these rhetoricians were not foisting new grand divisions upon the world, but were striving to furnish descriptive terms for the many variations from the norm, from the type-oration. His attitude seems strange in view of the fact that he was always seeking divisions and generalizations for 'a One and Many' in nature and art. Some of the terms at which he smiled were adopted by sub 18 Various words were used, as epilogos, anakephalaiosis, epanodos. sequent generations, others failed to become media of exchange. No one accepted the Aristotelian compression into two essential terms-statement and proof. To do so would be very much like teaching that a banquet consists of two fundamental parts: hunger and food. That might be strictly scientific, but it would not be artistic. The chefs in charge would probably elaborate the menu with appetizers, entrees, dessert, and other technicalities of the culinary craft. So rhetoricians, examining the productions of speakers in court, assembly, and exhibition, would naturally discover more than the bare bones of a speech. Theodorus was one of those keen investigators who believed that narrations, proofs, and refutations, coming out of the normal position, should have appropriate designations. His ideas were adopted or modified by subsequent rhetoricians and may be detected even in our own day, especially in the strategy of debate, even though descriptive terms have been largely abandoned. If we had the text issued by the Byzantine, we might follow him with greater confidence. Unfortunately, it is lost in the abyss along with his speeches and logographs. What little knowledge we have must be gleaned almost wholly from his critics. They assure us that a man from Byzantium invented terms for the subdivisions of the principal parts of an oration; that he showed how plaintiffs and defendants in their arguments might take advantage of the probabilities involved in mistakes; and that, scorning nakedness in style, he beat out, like an armorer upon his anvil, novel forms of expression. IN CHARLES A. FRITZ Washington Square College the QUARTERLY JOURNAL of June, 19221 there appeared an article by Miss Rousseau setting forth the results of a survey of Speech courses in the Normal Schools. This left the impression that at that time the normal schools were not doing as much as they might to further the cause of speech education. The lack of agreement as to aims and content of courses, the weakness of the offerings in many schools and the great variety in nomenclature of the courses were among the chief points brought out. That these conditions still exist is shown by an investigation of my own carried out on somewhat the same lines except for the fact that only the leading normal schools were examined and the emphasis was on the content and method of the beginning course. For this purpose forty of the most prominent teachers' colleges of the country were chosen and only those offering a four-year course leading to a baccalaureate degree. If there has been any advance, it will surely be shown in these schools. The data used were secured from bulletins and from answers to questionnaires. What were the results? First, there is the same lack of agreement as to nomenclature of departments. In just half of these schools the work is in the English department; in the others it is classified as Speech, Reading, Dramatics, Oral Expression, Reading and Public Speaking, English and Public Speaking. The few institutions having a separate Speech Department offer rather extensive work, but the majority of schools give from one to four courses most of which continue for only one term of twelve weeks. The confusion as to title and content of courses seems to have increased. The catalogues list thirty-eight separate courses not counting the work in Dramatics. Most of these are found in a few schools. One department offers eighteen courses in Speech not including Dramatics, another offers fifteen courses and another 1 Speech Education in the Normal Schools-A Survey, Q. J. S. E., June, 1922. twelve. Neither in the aims of these courses nor in their content is there any more agreement. The chief object of the investigation was to find something of the content and method of the beginning course in Public Speaking. Where the first course was devoted entirely to reading it was passed over in favor of the fundamental course in speechmaking or the course which presented the fundamentals of the whole field. As Let us take first the teaching objectives of this course. given in the bulletins they appear in order of frequency as follows: To train students to gather and arrange material for speeches. To teach the student to express his thoughts to an audi ence with freedom, force and ease. To help remove fear and self-consciousness. To correct faults of voice and speech. To develop better platform manners. To give the student a basis for self-criticism. To teach the student to gain the attention of the audience. As to the method and content of the course there is little agreement. In perhaps a majority of schools the main emphasis is upon the preparation and delivery of speech material, but in others interpretation and original speaking are both stressed, the aim being to cover the fundamentals of the whole field of speech. Usually the course consists of (1) the theory of speech as given through text assignments, lectures and outside readings; (2) laboratory work consisting of speeches, readings, etc., and (3) criticism by the instructor. The greater number of teachers according to the replies present the theory in text assignments, but a few use only outside reading assignments, a few supplement the text by lectures, a few use all methods, while two or three assign very little theory giving only suggestions and criticism. The replies indicated too that practically all of the teachers use the class hour for the presentation and discussion of theory. In one school one day out of four is used for theory; one teacher lectures, and in assignments uses mimeographed sheets and the project method. The diversity of methods in this course is shown by the number of different texts used. The list of texts in use as indicated |