named California or Mexico.  And the real supremacy of man is based upon his capacity for education.  Man is unique in the length of his childhood, which means the period of plasticity and education.  The childhood of a moth, the distance that stands between the hatching of the robin and its maturity, represent a few hours or a few weeks, but twenty years for growth stands between man’s cradle and his citizenship.  This protracted childhood makes it possible to hand over to the boy all the accumulated stores achieved by races and civilizations through thousands of years.

    —­Anonymous.

You must understand that there are no steel-riveted rules of emphasis.  It is not always possible to designate which word must, and which must not be emphasized.  One speaker will put one interpretation on a speech, another speaker will use different emphasis to bring out a different interpretation.  No one can say that one interpretation is right and the other wrong.  This principle must be borne in mind in all our marked exercises.  Here your own intelligence must guide—­and greatly to your profit.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.

1.  What is emphasis?

2.  Describe one method of destroying monotony of thought-presentation.

3.  What relation does this have to the use of the voice?

4.  Which words should be emphasized, which subordinated, in a sentence?

5.  Read the selections on pages 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54, devoting special attention to emphasizing the important words or phrases and subordinating the unimportant ones.  Read again, changing emphasis slightly.  What is the effect?

6.  Read some sentence repeatedly, emphasizing a different word each time, and show how the meaning is changed, as is done on page 22.

7.  What is the effect of a lack of emphasis?

8.  Read the selections on pages 30 and 48, emphasizing every word.  What is the effect on the emphasis?

9.  When is it permissible to emphasize every single word in a sentence?

10.  Note the emphasis and subordination in some conversation or speech you have heard.  Were they well made?  Why?  Can you suggest any improvement?

11.  From a newspaper or a magazine, clip a report of an address, or a biographical eulogy.  Mark the passage for emphasis and bring it with you to class.

12.  In the following passage, would you make any changes in the author’s markings for emphasis?  Where?  Why?  Bear in mind that not all words marked require the same degree of emphasis—­in a wide variety of emphasis, and in nice shading of the gradations, lie the excellence of emphatic speech.