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Nobel prize for oratoryPublished online: 21 May 2009.

To cite this article: (1954) Nobel prize for oratory, Today's Speech, 2:1, 1-1, DOI: 10.1080/01463375409389422

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What Should We Teach?In one of our articles in this issue Walter Dun-

can raises the question of whether our basic col-lege course in communication skills (normallyEnglish Composition) ought not to incorporatespeaking and listening along with writing. Manywill recall the study by Paul T. Rankin, published.in the Chicago Scliools Journal, June, 1930, inwhich he concluded (on the basis of a 1929 sur-vey) that communicative effectiveness depends472 on listening; 28.5% on talking; 17.32 on read-ing; and 7.2? on writing.

According to "The Foreman's Letter," distribut-ed by the National Foreman's Institute, for Octob-er 26, 1953, in 1950 the Pentagon asked the Psy-chological Corporation to make a study of theactivities of foremen, to determine what they act-ually do on the job. The psychologists observed171 foremen in five plants making different pro-ducts, located in five different sections of thecountry. After more than 500 hours of observation,they pooled their findings and discovered that theforemen spend more than 50!? of their time "talk-ing" (giving instructions, asking questions, boost-ing morale, etc.)

At the Pennsylvania State University (College,until last Nov.), a doctoral dissertation complet-ed in 1949 by Miriam Elizabeth Wilt, entitled AStudy of Teacher Awareness of Listening as aFactor in Elementary Education, sheds more lighton this question. Dr. Wilt questioned 1452 publicschool teachers as to their judgment of the im-portance of the four basic communication skills inthe learning process. Ratings were as follows:

Reading Speaking Listening WritingFirst 897 318 232 5

61.8!? 21.97 16? .3?Second 272 4S9 620 71

18.7% 33.7$ 42.7% 4.9%Third 268 542 413 229

18.52 37.3? 28.4% 15.8?Fourth 15 103 187 1147

1? 7.1? 12.9? 79?Such figures raise a number of questions. Why

is not Speech required at least as widely as isEnglish Composition? Shouldn't all high school .and college students be required to take two fullyears, at a minimum, of instruction in Speech —instead of one semester, or none? Won't Speechteachers have more support than they may antici-pate in proposing such a requirement? Is thestudy of listening being neglected in our Speechclasses? Shouldn't we encourage more such meas-urement studies?

Nobel Prize for OratoryOn October 15, 1953, in the first Nobel Prize

ever to cite oratory as a reason for the award, SirWinston Churchill was honored by the SwedishAcademy with a citation which read: "For hishistoncal and biographical presentations and forhis scintillating oratory in which he h<is stoodforth as a defender of eternal human value."

In its editorial account of the awarding of theNobel Prize, on October 16, the New York Timessaid:

"This award says that words well chosen,uttered at the right time, bravely spoken, arethe most powerful things in the world. Theyare powerful because they appeal to thehearts of men. They can drive men to mad-ness, as Hitler's words did. They may inspirethem to acts of utter heroism and self-sacri-fice, as Churchill's did

But one's concern m the case of WinstonChurchill cannot be with the artisanship oreven with the artistry of the words he hasused. Men as great as he have been dull atspeech—but not often. The flames that lightthe Churchill style and the great heroic glowthat warms his language are not the results ofschooling or of painful imitation, but ofcharacter, ideas, determination, courage.The aristocratic Churchill, ending his careerus the leader of the old Tory party, somehowmanaged to sense the spirit of the democraticage. After the evacuation of Dunkerque hesubstituted words for tanks, phrases for ar-tillery, the throb of an impassioned Englishfor the bayonets that still had to be forged.This language was born out of history, out ofChaucer and all who followed Chaucer, outof the great constitutional documents that arepart of our heritage of freedom, too. WinstonChurchill, the Conservative, believed in free-dom, in the honor and integrity of the in-dividual, in the essentials of democracy. Aridhe spoke and wrote these beliefs in wordsthat will be remembered as long as the recordof this century stands."In his own analysis of how his style and oratori-

cal ability were developed, Churchill attributed itin part to the fact that he was "held back" forthree years at Harrow, because of deficiency inLatin and mathematics, and was given insteadhard drill in English: "Thus," he wrote, "I gotinto my bones the essential structure of the ordin-ary English sentence—which is a noble thing."

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