of his recommendations.  A labor agitator knows that his conclusion is going to be an appeal to a sense of class prejudice, so he speaks with that continually in mind.  An efficiency expert in shop management knows that his conclusion is going to enforce the saving in damages for injury by accident if a scheme of safety devices be installed, so he speaks with that conclusion constantly in his mind.  In court the prosecuting attorney tells in his introduction exactly what he intends to prove.  His conclusion shows that he has proved what he announced.

One is tempted to say that the test of a good speech, a well-prepared speech, is its conclusion.  How many times one hears a speaker floundering along trying to do something, rambling about, making no impression, not advancing a pace, and then later receives from the unfortunate the confession, “I wanted to stop but I didn’t know how to do it.”  No conclusion had been prepared beforehand.  It is quite as disturbing to hear a speaker pass beyond the place where he could have made a good conclusion.  If he realizes this he slips into the state of the first speaker described in this paragraph.  If he does not realize when he reaches a good conclusion he talks too long and weakens the effect by stopping on a lower plane than he has already reached.  This fault corresponds to the story teller whose book drops in interest at the end.  The son of a minister was asked whether his father’s sermon the previous Sunday had-not had some good points in it.  The boy replied, “Yes, three good points where he should have stopped.”

Length of the Conclusion.  It must not be inferred from anything here stated concerning the importance of the conclusion that it need be long.  A good rule for the length of the conclusion is the same rule that applies to the length of the introduction.  It should be just long enough to do best what it is intended to do.  As in the case of the introduction, so for the conclusion, the shorter the better, if consistent with clearness and effect.  If either introduction or conclusion must deliberately be reduced the conclusion will stand the most compression.  A conclusion will frequently fail of its effect if it is so long that the audience anticipates its main points.  It fails if it is so long that it adds nothing of clearness or emphasis to the speech itself.  It will end by boring if it is too long for the importance of its material.  It will often produce a deeper, more lasting impression by its very conciseness.  Brevity is the soul of more than mere humor.  A brief remark will cut deeper than a long involved sentence.  The speaker who had shown that the recent great war fails unless the reconstruction to be accomplished is worthy needed no more involved conclusion than the statement, “It is what we do tomorrow that will justify what we did yesterday.”

Coupled with this matter of effect is the length of the speech itself.  Short speeches are likely to require only short conclusions.  Long speeches more naturally require longer conclusions.