“Arbitrary choice ... of one subject from among a number involves so many important considerations that no speaker ever fails to appreciate the tone of satisfaction in him who triumphantly announces:  ’I have a subject!’

“‘Do give me a subject!’ How often the weary school teacher hears that cry.  Then a list of themes is suggested, gone over, considered, and, in most instances, rejected, because the teacher can know but imperfectly what is in the pupil’s mind.  To suggest a subject in this way is like trying to discover the street on which a lost child lives, by naming over a number of streets until one strikes the little one’s ear as sounding familiar.

“Choice by development is a very different process.  It does not ask, What shall I say?  It turns the mind in upon itself and asks, What do I think?  Thus, the subject may be said to choose itself, for in the process of thought or of reading one theme rises into prominence and becomes a living germ, soon to grow into the discourse.  He who has not learned to reflect is not really acquainted with his own thoughts; hence, his thoughts are not productive.  Habits of reading and reflection will supply the speaker’s mind with an abundance of subjects of which he already knows something from the very reading and reflection which gave birth to his theme.  This is not a paradox, but sober truth.

“It must be already apparent that the choice of a subject by development savors more of collection than of conscious selection.  The subject ‘pops into the mind.’ ...  In the intellect of the trained thinker it concentrates—­by a process which we have seen to be induction—­the facts and truths of which he has been reading and thinking.  This is most often a gradual process.  The scattered ideas may be but vaguely connected at first, but more and more they concentrate and take on a single form until at length one strong idea seems to grasp the soul with irresistible force, and to cry aloud, ’Arise, I am your theme!  Henceforth, until you transmute me by the alchemy of your inward fire into vital speech, you shall know no rest!’ Happy, then, is that speaker, for he has found a subject that grips him.

“Of course, experienced speakers use both methods of selection.  Even a reading and reflective man is sometimes compelled to hunt for a theme from Dan to Beersheba, and then the task of gathering materials becomes a serious one.  But even in such a case there is a sense in which the selection comes by development, because no careful speaker settles upon a theme which does not represent at least some matured thought."[10]

Deciding on the Subject Matter

Even when your theme has been chosen for you by someone else, there remains to you a considerable field for choice of subject matter.  The same considerations, in fact, that would govern you in choosing a theme must guide in the selection of the material.  Ask yourself—­or someone else—­such questions as these: