An introduction to communication and reading:
The art of communication has three grand divisions. The first involves mastery of the subject The second involves mastery of its presentation, which is usually in written form. The third involves mastery of its reception, which is listening to a spoken presentation and reading of a written presentation.
Our schools and colleges originally devoted themselves chiefly to teaching subjects. Many years ago business and professional men began to discover that they were unable to present the subjects they knew in an effective form. Then began the education of writers. Courses in Business English multiplied. Scientific bodies and technical corporations undertook to instruct their staffs in the art of speaking and writing.
Today, in the United States at least, it is fair to say that we have advanced far in making practical writers of engineers, executives, and editors and reporters of trade and technical journals. No country in the world produces nearly so much as ours in the way of clearly written reports, articles, and textbooks dealing with the affairs of business, industry, and the techniques.
But this very success brings to light our deficiencies in the third and last of the arts of communication. We have plenty of people who know their subjects. We have an astonishing number of excellent writers among those who know their subjects. And they are writing far more than their public can read. Can we not train this public to keep up in its reading?
I am sure that we can—at least to a very considerable degree. This book is strictly for the busy adult who is dissatisfied with the amount of reading he does in the course of a year. It will be of little or no value to school children. Eminent specialists have written excellent books for them. Their problems are very different from those with which we are going to wrestle here. So far as I know, nobody has given the poor adult a serious thought.
And yet all of the world's important reading is done by this same poor adult. The fate of nations hangs on what he reads. So does the trend in the stock markets. So does the march of industry and business. So does the progress of education and every larger aspect of social welfare. Abolish reading matter. Abolish readers. And what have you left? A world of talkers. How much business could they do, as compared with the readers who also talk?
Surely not one-tenth as much. Or, if as much as that in bulk, then surely of inferior quality. For men misunderstand one another far more in conversation than in the printed word. Why so? Because a word once spoken has vanished; and, unless you have correctly grasped its relation to all else that is being said, you become confused.
Did you ever suffer from having your talk reported? Did you ever give an address of which you failed to prepare a summary for the newspapers? Then you know what I mean. We complain bitterly of the blunders the reporters commit when digesting our talk. But we fail to consider that everybody tends to misinterpret what we say, and mainly because the ear does not retain large masses of speech in a form that can be reviewed later as easily as you review a printed page. When you fail to grasp a printed statement, you run your eye back and look the words over afresh. That can't be done with sounds.
So, if you wish to persuade a man quickly, talk to him; for your personality will impress him more intensely than the precise content of your remarks. But if you wish to inform a man, give him your ideas to study with care, in some permanent form.
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