Scientific invention keeps moving as rapidly as it can to take advantage of this supreme importance.  Great as was the advance marked by the telegraph, it was soon overtaken and passed by the convenience of the telephone.  The first conveys messages at great distance, but it fails to give the answer at once.  It fails to provide for the rapid interchange of ideas which the second affords.  Wireless telegraphy has already been followed by wireless telephony.  The rapid intelligent disposal of the complicated affairs of our modern world requires more than mere writing—­it demands immediate interchange of ideas by means of speech.

Many people who in their habitual occupations are popularly said to write a great deal do nothing of the sort.  The millions of typists in the world do no writing at all in the real sense of that word; they merely reproduce what some one else has actually composed and dictated.  This latter person also does no actual writing.  He speaks what he wants to have put into writing.  Dictating is not an easily acquired accomplishment in business—­as many a man will testify.  Modern office practice has intensified the difficulty.  It may be rather disconcerting to deliver well-constructed, meaningful sentences to an unresponsive stenographer, but at any rate the receiver is alive.  But to talk into the metallic receiver of a mechanical dictaphone has an almost ridiculous air.  Men have to train themselves deliberately to speak well when they first begin to use these time-saving devices.  Outside of business, a great deal of the material printed in periodicals and books—­sometimes long novels—­has been delivered orally, and not written at all by its author.  Were anything more needed to show how much speech is used it would be furnished by the reports of the telephone companies.  In one table the number of daily connections in 1895 was 2,351,420.  In 1918 this item had increased to 31,263,611.  In twenty-three years the calls had grown fifteen times as numerous.  In 1882 there were 100,000 subscriber stations.  In 1918 this number had swelled to 11,000,000.

Subordinates and executives in all forms of business could save incalculable time and annoyance by being able to present their material clearly and forcefully over the telephone, as well as in direct face-to-face intercourse.

The Director of high schools in a large municipality addressed a circular letter to the business firms of the city, asking them to state what is most necessary in order to fit boys for success in business.  Ninety-nine per cent laid stress on the advantage of being able to write and speak English accurately and forcibly.

Testimony in support of the statement that training in speaking is of paramount importance in all careers might be adduced from a score of sources.  Even from the seemingly far-removed phase of military leadership comes the same support.  The following paragraph is part of a letter issued by the office of the Adjutant-General during the early months of the participation of this country in the Great War.