Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory: Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University, Volume 1Before becoming President of the United States, John Quincy Adams was a Harvard professor of language, rhetoric and oratory, with this book comprising his lectures. Published in 1810 when Quincy Adams was in his forties, this work is a collection which demonstrates the breadth of knowledge which he passed to students eager to learn about the arts of speaking. The early lectures cover the basic principles of oratory and eloquence in the context of public speaking, and the origins of rhetoric as a celebrated art form in ancient Greece and Rome. It is clear that the author possesses an intense knowledge of the subject and its professional application. Later on in the text are more specific lectures, such as the importance of perfecting oratory for the courtroom, and the personal qualities a good speaker should cultivate. Keeping tight control of one's emotions when speaking or debating with others, and delivering compelling lectures from the church pulpit, are also discussed at length. Although this material is well over 200 years old with much of the language archaic by modern standards, the ideas and principles espoused by Quincy Adams remain both relevant and important to students and those working in fields where speech is vital. |
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... original . Its effects have been to soften the tempers and purify the morals of mankind ; not in so high a degree , as benevolence could wish , but enough to call forth our strains of warmest gratitude to that good being , who pro ...
... original humor , in a couplet , which goes farther to discredit all systems of rhetoric , than volumes of sober argument can effect in promoting them , has told the world , that All a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his ...
... original separation of the Greeks into a number of independent states , their associations for certain national purposes , and the spirit of lib- erty , which pervaded them , are circumstances as firmly established , as any part of the ...
... original author of that beautiful and instructive fable of the choice of Hercules ; Protagoras of Abdera ; Hippias of Elis ; Alcidamus of Elea ; Antiphon , who first publish- ed a rhetorical treatise , and a judicial oration to- gether ...
... all his faculties . The principal difficulty of the subject was to settle a standard of eloquence ; for the original controversy between the rival Asiatic and Attic schools , which 110 [ LECT . IV . ORIGIN OF ORATORY .