But How Does It Sound?

In preparing for an eventual business or professional career, there is one basically important area which appears to be largely overlooked. Educators everywhere are perennially concerned with methods or devices for improving the teaching of reading, which is generally accepted as the most useful of all tools for continued learning. Prominent people in business and industry emphasize the importance of communication, which is usually understood to be in the form of writing. Little attention seems to be given, however, to the elemental skill without which reading and writing must rest on a weak foundation: the ability to speak well. Schools and colleges do give courses in public speaking, and many students have found these very profitable, but they have the disadvantage of beginning at the wrong end. The basic matter is one\u27s private speaking, the quality of his ordinary conversation in everyday affairs. There is where occurs the formation that makes the difference. And it is not to be had by taking a course