WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

The Boylston and Lee Wade speaking contests tonight represent a revival of the lost art of election, long out of place in the American college, relic of an era that cared less for what was said than for how it was said.

Ten speakers will deliver selections from recognized authors and orators, and they will probably perform admirably. Professors and their wives, Cambridge dowagers, contestants' room-mates, and a few other students will probably have an evening's entertainment. Four men will receive cash prizes under the terms of the endowment, but neither competitors nor audience will receive any lasting benefit from the effort involved in the contest. To memorize and intone perfectly in parrot-like elocution is no longer the acme of public speaking.

The Boylston and Lee Wade prizes encourage the style rather than the substance of public speaking, slighting the far more important art of public thinking. If, instead of an old-fashioned elocution contest, they provide for an equally old-fashioned but still valuable oratorial contest, they would continue to foster interest in public speaking and great orations, and would also stimulate creative undergraduate expression. Carefully worked-out orations on literary, social, and political problems, delivered in conversational rather than declamatory style, would confer far more lasting benefit on competitors than the mere memorizing of another author's work, no matter how great. If the dead hand of endowment could be changed, the Boylston and Lee Wade prizes would then reward the substance as well as the style of public speaking, and would encourage the valuable art of public thinking.