Preparing descriptive talks

To arouse interest, your speech must necessarily follow some recognizable sequence that your listeners will readily grasp and be able to follow. If your talk is a travelogue, outline the entire itinerary by following the geographical steps-then develop each site in its order.

We also noted in Chapter 6 that a description of the “good old days” is trivia unless those times are compared with the present. So also is a speech on your home town, your business, profession, political views or economic thinking meaningless, unless it is compared with a former era or a future potential. “There was a time when . . .; but today those conditions are changed and as we look into the future. . . .”

A travelogue has a tendency to fall flat unless it is accompanied by pictures, but if they are not feasible then another means employed for making travel talks worth while is a tie-in with a patriotic appeal. Foreign countries may be interestingly described by comparing their customs, habits and government with our own. The special blessings of being an American are well eulogized by pointing out how the fate of the average European, for instance, is determined by his birth: When his father owns a book stall on the banks of the Siene, his fate is sealed; he too will grow to be a book vendor.

When his father is a waiter in a French cafe, his father will one day pay the owner for the privilege of letting his son serve in his stead. A traveller returning to our native shores sees the monuments of industry built in steel and stone, and becomes aware of a restless throbbing nation of people wherein each man’s future is measured not by his birth but by his own efforts. No matter how humble his beginning, he may one day be the mayor of a vast metropolis, governor of a great state, or even grow up to be the most powerful man in the world-President of the United States.

As his ship nears the pier or his plane hits the runway, he probably says to himself that he’s glad he lives in a land where the bounds of man’s ambitions are limitless. He understands why the naturalized immigrant said, “Ah, you Americans! You don’t appreciate democracy because you don’t know what it ‘ain’t.’” He realizes sincerely what it means to possess God’s greatest heritage-as an American citizen!

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