into effective form.  Jefferson was the greatest moulder of public opinion in the early days of this country.  He did not create Democratic sentiment; he simply took the aspirations that had nestled in the hearts of men from time immemorial and put them into appropriate and epigrammatic language, so that the nation thought his thoughts after him, as the world is now doing.  The proverbs of Solomon are priceless for the same reason; they are full of wisdom—­wisdom so expressed that it can be easily comprehended.

When I was a boy my father would call me in from work a little before noon, read to me from Proverbs and comment on the sayings of the Wise Man.  After his death (when I was twenty) I recalled his fondness for Proverbs and read the thirty-one chapters through each month for a year.  I was increasingly impressed with their beauty and strength.  I have used many of them in speeches.  The one I have most frequently used in the advocacy of reforms reads:  “A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.”

I have often used a story to illustrate how much can be said in a few words.  A man said to another, “Do you drink?” The man to whom the question was addressed, replied rather indignantly, “That is my business, sir.”  “Have you any other business?” asked the first man.  The story is not only valuable as an illustration of brevity but it has a moral side; if a man drinks much he soon has no other business.

In this connection I will speak of the words to be employed.  Our use of big words increases from infancy to the day of graduation.  I think it is safe to say that with nearly all of us the maximum is reached on the day when we leave school.  We use more big words that day than we have ever used before or will ever use again.  When we go from college into every-day life and begin to deal with our fellowmen we drop the big words because we are more interested in making people understand us than we are in parading our learning.  The more earnest one is the smaller the words used.  If a young man used big words to assure his sweetheart of his affection she would never understand him, but the word love has but one syllable, just as the words life, faith, hope, home, food, and work are one-syllable words.  Remember that nearly every audience is made up of people who differ in the amount of book learning they have received.  If you speak only to those best educated you will speak over the heads of those less educated.  A story is told on a great scientist who made two holes in the back fence and showed them to his wife, explaining that the big hole was for the cat and the small hole for the kitten.  “But cannot the kitten go through the same hole as the cat?” inquired his wife.  If you use little words you can reach not only the least learned, but the most learned as well.