ORATION 



4397 



ORATION 



word meaning man of the woods, is the name 

 of a giant, manlike ape which inhabits Sumatra 

 and Borneo. It is from four to five feet high 

 and is covered with coarse, red-brown hair; 

 its skull is higher than that of any other ape, 

 and its brain is next in size to man's. The 

 arms are extremely long, reaching to the ankles 

 when the animal stands erect. 



Whenever possible, the ape makes its way 

 by swinging from branch to branch in the trees. 

 Nests or platforms are built from forty to fifty 



THE ORANG-UTAN 



feet above the ground, and are used for sleep 

 and refuge. The orang-utans subsist entirely 

 on vegetables. When going for water, the ani- 

 mal is sometimes forced to walk on the ground. 

 Usually its method is to walk on the knuckles 

 of the hands and the outer sides of the feet, 

 but occasionally it raises itself on its feet, and 

 grasping branches overhead, walks upright by 

 IK !p. Traveling in this manner, it can 

 cover five or six miles an hour. These apes 

 live alone or in pairs, never in communities. 



v are easily tamed if caught young, and 

 when trained show considerable intelligence. 



ORATION, ora'uhun, a formal address, in 



eloquent language. It aims to arouse tin tY< 1- 



loii, ami often to stir the 



re to action. A typical oration consists 

 of three part* the introduction, the body :m<l 

 til* conclusion. In tin introduction thespe 

 explains his subject and indicates the c<> 

 of argument he proposes to follow; in the body 

 he advances hi arguments or defend* his prin- 

 ciples; in tin- conclusive nariies tin 



nces to be drawn and makes his plea for 

 the sympathy or cooperation of his audience. 



Before the invention of printing, almost the 

 only way to reach large numbers of people was 

 through speeches. An orator might by his elo- 

 quence sway the emotions and sentiments of a 

 crowd and make himself their virtual leader; 

 in fact, many a demagogue owed his power to 

 an ability to speak movingly. But with the 

 spread of the newspaper and other periodical 

 literature, oratory began to lose much of its 

 influence. It is a very rare thing to-day for 

 crowds to be swayed or turned from their pur- 

 pose by one man's voice, and it is acknowledged 

 that political speeches during a campaign 

 change few votes. When a man rises in Par- 

 liament or in Congress to address his colleagues 

 he has in mind the effect which the newspaper 

 version of his speech will have on his sup- 

 porters fully as much as the more immediate 

 influence he may have on those who are listen- 

 ing to him. 



One of the most effective orations ever writ- 

 ten is the one which Shakespeare put into the 

 mouth of Antony in Julius Caesar, and every 

 step in his method of gripping the feelings of 

 the crowd and bringing them to his own way 

 of thinking is clear; but a present-day audi- 

 ence, with its beliefs strengthened by able edi- 

 torials, or by mere constant iteration in a news- 

 paper or other periodical, would be far less 

 easy to sway. 



Perhaps the earliest form of oration was the 

 address of a commander to his soldiers. The 

 ancient historians give examples of such 

 speeches, and while the words which they give 

 arc probably not authentic, they at least prove 

 the existence of this early type of oratory. 

 Next came pleas before courts, where the man 

 on trial and his accuser might each present his 

 own cause, and growing out of this, the custom 

 of choosing men with special gifts as speakers 

 to make such pleas instead of those directly 

 interested. Later, with the hrginninK of repre- 

 :tive government, orators began to pre- 

 sent the demands of the people in the assem- 

 blies, or urge the people to stand for their 

 rights or to be true to their convictions. 



In the history of oratory there have been 



three great periods which stand out above all 



others. Tin- first of these, and in some ways 



the greatest, was the age of Demosthenes in 



< The one figure so dominates his time 



that his rivals and imitators are often scarcely 



considered, yet Isocrates, Lysias, Aeachines and 



Pericles were orators who ha^ve seldom been 



equaled. The second great period was the lat- 



!.:lf of the eighteenth century in England, 



