Excerpt from The Best American Orations of Today The speeches of Webster, Clay, Pitt, Patrick Henry, Calhoun, Lincoln, Beecher, and many others, are to be found in almost every Speaker and Reader now published. They have been de claimed for years from every school platform in the country, and with most inspiring in uence. Andrew Draper says: The old-time school declamation on recurring red-letter days in the regular 'routine of the early schools was a great stimulant to boys and girls. It was not more in the words that were heard than in the fact that the boys themselves gave expression to them. It is the doing of things which stirs ambition and creates power, even the doing of things which some one else has done. There are plenty of men prominent in affairs who would gladly testify to the uplifting in uences of the master pieces of oratory and literature on their own lives by means of the school declamation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."