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OR THE

CULTIVATION OF THE VOICE,

IN ELOCUTION:

A MANUAL OF ELEMENTARY EXERCISES

ADAPTED TO DR. RUSH'S "PHILOSOPH OF THE HUMAN VOICE,"

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KD32699

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
047*172

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by
WILLIAM RUSSELL,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY

GEORGE A. CURTIS;

NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

ΤΟ

DR. JAMES RUSH,

WHOSE WORK ON

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN VOICE,

HAS RENDERED DEFINITE AND EXACT INSTRUCTION PRACTICABLE IN

ELOCUTION,

THE FOLLOWING MANUAL

IS

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

THE design of the exercises presented in this manual, is to furnish the groundwork of practical elocution, and whatever explanations are needed for the training of the organs and the cultivation of the voice.. The system of instruction, adopted in the present volume, is founded on Dr. Rush's treatise, "The Philosophy of the Human Voice," and is designed as a practical synopsis of that work, with the addition of copious examples and exercises, selected for the purpose of facilitating the application of theory to practice. We hope, however, that the use of this manual will induce students and teachers to consult, for themselves, that invaluable source of instruction, for an ample and complete statement of the theory of vocal culture, in connection with an exact analysis of the vocal functions.

The manual now offered as an aid to the business of instruction, contains, besides a compendious view of the system of Dr. Rush, — the practical methods of instruction introduced by Mr. James E. Murdoch, and taught by Mr. Francis T. Russell, in that part of elocution which comprises phonation, or the formation of vocal tone, and orthophony, or the training of the vocal organs, on the rudiments of articulation, force, "stress," pitch, and the other elements of "expression,” — including the whole organic discipline of "vocal gymnastics.”

The exercises imbodied in the following pages, are designed equally for the assistance of two classes of students, at very different stages of progress in general education, but requiring, alike, the benefit of a thorough-going course of practice in elocution; - young learners, whose habits of utterance are, as yet, forming; and adults, whose professional duties involve the exercise of public speaking. To the former, this manual will furnish the materials for a progressive cultivation and development of the vocal organs, for the useful purposes of education, and as a graceful accomplishment. To the latter, it affords the means of correcting erroneous habit in the use of the organs of speech, and of acquiring the command of an easy, healthful, and effective mode of managing the voice, in the act of reading or speaking in public.

The plan adopted, in arranging the subsequent exercises, presents the various departments of elocution in the following order:

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