If a Harvard professor of elocution
would retain his responsibility for his pupils five or ten
years after they got into active life he would do a great
deal more good than by his instructions to undergraduates.
So far we have been talking about mere manner. The matter
and substance of the orator's speech must depend upon the
intellectual quality of the man.
The great orator must be a man of absolute sincerity. Never
advocate a cause in which you do not believe, or affect an
emotion you do not feel. No skill or acting will cover up
the want of earnestness. It is like the ointment of the
hand which bewrayeth itself.
I shall be asked how I can reconcile this doctrine with the
practice of the law. It will be said the advocate must often
defend men whom he believes to be guilty, or argue to the
court propositions he believes to be unsound. This objection
will disappear if we consider what exactly is the function
of the advocate in our system of administering justice.
I suppose it is needless to argue to persons of American
or English birth that our system of administering justice is
safer for the innocent and, on the whole, secures the punishment
of guilt and secures private right better than any other
that now exists or that ever existed among men.
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