FOR ORAL EXPRESSION COMPILED AND EDITED BY EDWIN DUBOIS SHURTER, PH.D. Director of the School of Citizenship AND DWIGHT EVERETT WATKINS, A.M. NOBLE AND NOBLE, Publishers 76 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK Wahr 10-24-2512414 PREFACE PROFESSOR HIRAM CORSON, in his book, "The Voice and Spiritual Education," quotes with approval the remark of Sir Henry Taylor: "I often think how strange it is that amongst all the efforts which are made in these days to teach young people everything that is known, from the Cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, the one thing omitted is teaching them how to read." This remark applies particularly to oral reading, judged by the results of our teaching, and more particularly to the vocal interpretation of poetry. Whatever may be the ultimate valuation of silent reading as a class-room method, certain it is that this method cannot well be applied to the interpretation of poetry; for just as a skilled musician is needed to interpret the composer's symbols, so good oral reading is required to interpret adequately the poet's thought and emotion. "A poem is not truly a poem," says Professor Corson, "until it is voiced by an accomplished reader who has assimilated it-in whom it has, to some extent, been born again, according to his individual spiritual constitution and experience. The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed poem must be vocally realized. . . Shake speare, for example, did not write for the eye, but for the ear. The written word was to him what it i |