“Words,” says one, referring to articulation, should “be delivered out from the lips, as beautiful coins, newly issued from the mint; deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished; neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, in due succession, and of due weight.”  How rarely do we hear a speaker whose tongue, teeth, and lips, do their office so perfectly as to answer to this beautiful description!  And the common faults in articulation, it should be remembered, take their rise from the very nursery.

Grace in eloquence, in the pulpit, at the bar, can not be separated from grace in the ordinary manners, in private life, in the social circle, in the family.  It can not well be superinduced upon all the other acquisitions of youth, any more than that nameless, but invaluable, quality called good breeding.  Begin, therefore, the work of forming the orator with the child; not merely by teaching him to declaim, but what is of more consequence, by observing and correcting his daily manners, motions, and attitudes.  You can say, when he comes into your apartment, or presents you with something, a book or letter, in an awkward and blundering manner, “Return, and enter this room again,” or, “Present me that book in a different manner,” or, “Put yourself in a different attitude.”  You can explain to him the difference between thrusting or pushing out his hand and arm, in straight lines and at acute angles, and moving them in flowing circular lines, and easy graceful action.  He will readily understand you.  Nothing is more true than that the motions of children are originally graceful; it is by suffering them to be perverted, that we lay the foundation of invincible awkwardness in later life.

In schools for children, it ought to be a leading object to teach the art of reading.  It ought to occupy threefold more time than it does.  The teachers of these schools should labor to improve themselves.  They should feel that to them, for a time, are committed the future orators of the land.

It is better that a girl should return from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the pianoforte.  The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure.  The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may be eloquent readers, as well as eloquent speakers.  We speak of perfection in this art:  and it is something, we must say in defense of our preference, which we have never yet seen.  Let the same pains be devoted to reading, as are required to form an accomplished performer on an instrument; let us have, as the ancients had, the formers of the voice, the music masters of the reading voice; let us see years devoted to this accomplishment, and then we should be prepared to stand the comparison.

Reading is indeed, a most intellectual accomplishment.  So is music, too, in its perfection.  We do by no means undervalue this noble and most delightful art, to which Socrates applied himself even in his old age.  But one recommendation of the art of reading is, that it requires a constant exercise of mind.  It involves, in its perfection, the whole art of criticism on language.  A man may possess a fine genius without being a perfect reader; but he can not be a perfect reader without genius.