D. Ascendant and Submissive Types. The ascendant type of individual is the one with a strong urge to dominate every situation of which he is a part. In play on the school grounds he is the captain of the team; in extreme cases, he "won't play" unless he is allowed to be the captain. In the social life as a child he is the leader of the gang; he won't belong to it if he can't be. As he grows older some of this is knocked out of him by experience, but he frequently retains enough of it to be classified as a distinct type all through life. The extremely ascendant person monopolizes the conversation. It is extremely difficult to get him to listen to any one else. He wants to be the cynosure of all eyes. He is indeed a difficult problem for the speaker to handle, but he is likely to be a good speaker himself. The opposite type is the submissive person. From his childhood days to the end of his life he is the victim of the dominant and ascendant individual. He is highly suggestible and easily controlled by a speaker and with difficulty becomes a good speaker himself.

E. Social and Reclusive Types. The social individual is probably merely an extrovert who particularly craves social stimulation. He has learned how to adjust himself to other people and finds his greatest pleasure in the experience of making social adjustments. He, again, is relatively easy to deal with. Opposed to him, is the reclusive type, the negative personality, the man who fears other people, has as little to do with them as possible, and finds his interest in non-social activity. When placed in a speech situation he may be easy to deal with if he feels submissive, or he may be very difficult to deal with if he is uncomfortable and anxious to get away.

F. Suggestible and Non-suggestible Types.-The suggestible type of individual is one who is submissive, hyperkinetic, or impulsive and emotional. When these elements combine in a single individual he is very easy to control. However, when he happens to be intellectual, ascendant, and hypokinetic, he is likely to be non-suggestible. He is not accustomed to taking orders. He has to be treated most

tactfully and skillfully if he is to be directed into the paths which the speaker wants him to take.

Perhaps, as in a good many other cases, the speaker will do very well to begin a study of personality types by studying himself. He needs to learn that people who are efficient in making the social adjustments of speech are usually those who know a great deal about human nature, its characteristics, its types, and its peculiarities. The greatest mistake in speech is to treat all people as if they were precisely alike.

XI. CONCLUSION

In everything, when you are trying to motivate conduct be objective. That is the greatest single law of public speaking. Test everything from the viewpoint of the other person. Use your utmost skill in attempting to understand his conduct and the motives which produce it. Dissect the situation; sort out the facts which will be pleasing to the one whom you are trying to influence.

Consider your audience. Talk to them in terms of their own experience. Take a generous, tactful attitude. Give them no unnecessary offense. Strive in every possible way to make them like you personally. If you do this, they will become submissive and suggestible. If they do not like you personally, they will find plenty of good excuses for not doing what you ask them to do. Do not argue with the other person with the intention of crushing him into submission. Go with him into the subject with the spirit of Herbert Spencer, who said, "In proportion as we love truth more and victory less we shall become anxious to know what it is which leads. our opponents to think as they do. We shall begin to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibited by them must result from a perception of something we have not perceived. And we shall learn to supplement that portion of truth we have found with the portion found by them." 25

25 Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 12.

Beware of the kind of contention of which ex-senator Beveridge spoke when he said, "The friction of argument is far more likely to generate heat than light." Be charitable to all who differ with you. Seek honestly and earnestly for their points of view. Do not assume that every one who differs with you is dishonest. The chances are that he is just as honorable and just as sincere as you are but that he has had different experiences. Learn to look at your subject through the eyes of others. If you are to catch fish, you must choose your bait not according to your own tastes. You must bait the hook with what fish like. Apply this same principle in attempting to control men. The greatest single law of speaking is summed up in those two words: BE OBJECTIVE.

EXERCISES

1. Present to the class a magazine or newspaper advertisement which illustrates the effective use of some of the principles of motivation. Give a brief talk on the principles exemplified.

2. Identify and point out the impelling motives used in some great public address.

3. Give the best brief talk you can on one of the following topics: (a) Reason and Rationalization

(b) Wishing and Reasoning

(c) The Man Who is Hard to Convince

(d) The Personal Equation in Argument

(e) Argument which Generates Heat Rather than Light

(f) Mind Reading

(g) The Power of Suggestion

(h) Seeing is Believing

4. Write out the best persuasive speech you can prepare on a topic of your own choosing and then annotate it, calling attention to your uses of the impelling motives.

PART V

TYPES OF SPEECH

CHAPTER XX

PRIVATE SPEAKING

I. PRIVATE SPEAKING AND PUBLIC SPEAKING

II. INFORMAL CONVERSATIONS

III. FORMAL INTERVIEWS

A. Defined

B. Preparation for Interview

C. The Interview Itself

I. PRIVATE SPEAKING AND PUBLIC SPEAKING

He who He who

Professor Palmer says: "So mutually dependent are we that on our swift and full communication with one another is staked the success of almost every scheme we form. can explain himself may command what he wants. cannot is left to the poverty of individual resource; for men do what we desire only when persuaded. The persuasive and explanatory tongue is, therefore, one of the chief levers of life."

Our need for full communication with one another is both the origin of the speech habit and the basis for each individual effort in speaking. The extent to which full communication is had, constitutes the best single measure of the effectiveness of the speaking. "The persuasive and explanatory tongue is one of the chief levers of life" both in public and private concerns. Private speaking and public speaking are alike in the im

1 George Herbert Palmer, Self Cultivation in English, p. 4.

portance of communicativeness. Private speaking, the satisfaction of individual needs in relation to another individual, as the adjustment of the child learning to speak to some person in his environment is the motive power which produces speech habits, so that conversation - private speaking is in every sense of the word the true basis for all speaking.

Good public speaking is, therefore, as close to private speaking as the circumstances under which it is given will permit. But often the circumstances under which one is speaking make it necessary that the variation from private conversation be considerable. It is impossible to speak to twelve thousand people adequately and use the same voice, the same language, or the same action, which would be adequate in presenting the same material to one or two people in private conversation. In public speaking, therefore, vocalization, language, and action vary as much as is demanded by the exigencies of the occasion on which we are speaking. We should not change them for the sake of changing them. A safe rule to follow is to have one's speaking on every occasion as close in every way to one's best conversation as circumstances will allow. There seem to be no qualities which belong to either private speaking or public speaking exclusively. "Since there is practically nothing true of public speaking that may not be true at times of conversation, or nothing true of conversation that may not be true of public speaking, we can hardly hold the differences essential." 2

Someone may aver that public speaking is more impassioned than private speaking, or that it is more dignfied, more formal, more elegant; but it seems the simple truth to say that sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. Occasions can easily be found on which private speaking is supremely impassioned, dignified, formal, or elegant, and occasions upon which public speaking is almost totally lacking in these qualities.

A particular word should probably be said about mere 2 Winans, Public Speaking, p. 24.