Читать книгу The New Democracy: A handbook for Democratic speakers and workers - Walter Vrooman - Страница 8

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The easiest, the most economical, the most fruitful of the Volunteer speaker's work, will consist of unadvertised outdoor meetings. There is probably not a city, village, or town in America in which a man with a strong voice, mounting some emergency platform and calling out that he has something important to say, cannot, in a short time, attract a considerable crowd. If his message be direct, condensed, sincere and well delivered, he can hold the crowd in any except the most inclement weather. Coming as a surprise does not lessen the effect, if the words are well directed. People who could not be induced to enter a hall to hear a lecture, people who, if the meeting had been advertised, would purposely remain away, will stop and listen to an outdoor speaker; they will be interested, and may even be converted if the truths are well presented.

Of course, many passersby will listen only for a few minutes and proceed on their way. An outdoor crowd is always a changing one, but this merely necessitates a special outdoor method of treatment. Indoors, an address is expected to be continuous; one point must lead up to another; a line of thought must be followed so as to produce interest cumulative to the end. Outdoor speaking, on the other hand, must be made up of short, concise points, each complete in itself, so that no person can listen for a single minute without getting something to carry away with him. Anecdotes should be freely interspersed, but in condensed form.

As the audience is compelled to stand, often on damp ground, and in chilly or excessively hot weather, it is necessary that outdoor speaking should never, under any circumstances, take upon itself the qualities of a pedagogical lecture. On the other hand, it must be made up of illustrations, word pictures, and pungent assertion of those fundamental truths known to be most essential.