On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    upremitted attention of your tutors ; but also of your general good conduct and behaviour during the whole of the session , of "which we " have received from every quarter the most favourable report . This circumstance has , indeed ,

    been the occasion of a particular species of difficulty , which , while it has placed us in a not unpleasing dilemma , is , at the same time , hi g hly honourable to you . We are g iven to understand , that your tutors are so much at a loss to

    determine which of the two students , in the second and third classes , has excelled the other , in diligence and general good conduct , that they have wished the adjudication of the prizes in those elasses to depend upon the comparative merits of

    the orations . Between these , however , there has appeared to us so near an equallity , that it seems to be the general wish to propose an equal division of the first prize between Mr . Dean and Mr . Marsland ; and also oF the second , between Mr . Godman and Mr . Darbishire . Of

    the students in the third class it is understood that Mr . Lee is entitled to the prize . —I am desired , however , to g ive notice , that the trustees conceive a littie niisapprehen . ' ion to have occurred respecting the prizes ; and that it was their intention , perhaps inaccurately

    expressed in the Report , that all the'Students of the first three years were to be eqifalry competitors for all the three prizes ; and " not that one prize should be appropriated to each year : in some of which it niight , perhaps , happen that * h < $ re might be only one student , an 4 of

    coarse no competition . " I haye great satisfaction in stating , that it is the opinion of the trustees , that the manner , in point not onl y of composition , hut of delivery , is this year Considerably improved . At the same time , I must still be fcljowed to repeat , that though I am far from wishing to

    encourage any thing like an affectation vijinc ' sneaking cr gesture ; yet , a deliberate , distinct and forcible utterance , and a countenance and general manner , which may shew tha , t the speaker is himself sensible of the importance of the truths ^ vhich he deliver ?; , i * within the compass of eveiy one & « . t . ; m ) hient , and may reasonably be expected from all . There j * one particular defect , into which Enghsh speakers are very apt to fail , and against which , therefore , they ought to be particularl y on their guard—I mean the dropping of thc voice towards the

    Untitled Article

    close of every sentence . This may perhaps arise , in &ome degree , from the peculiar structure of our language , in which the verb , with its subject and object , are apt in general to occur prettyearly m a sentence , while those words which are less essential are often thrown

    towards the close , which therefore comes to be neglected in- pronunciation . It is to this circumstance that Sir Christopher Wren , in his letter on the construction of churches , ascribes the greater ease with which an orator , in the German or Latin languages , is found to make himself be heard by an equal number of

    persons , than one of equal powers who is addressing an audience in English . And on this account he proposes , that young persons who are intended for public speaking should be exercised to declaim in Latin , where the verb being generally placed at rthe end , the speaker must necessarily keep up his voice throughout to make himself be at all understood : he

    will thns be mechanically trained to avoid the common English fault o £ dropping the voice tdwards the close of the sentence . ( Parentalia . f >* 3 2 O . ) " I cannot conclude my present address without a few words to those young persons , more particularly , whose connection with this seminary is about to iclose . Those who , are now to leave us

    with the view of entering on the affairs of commercial and civil iife , \ vill , I trust , carry with them into the world those habits of diligence and attention which they have here so successfully cultivated ; in which case , they will be sure to reflect credit upon this institution , and at the same time can scarcely fai / to render still more honourable the important character of the British merchant .

    Our young friends who are now proposing to take upon themselves the office of the Christian ministry , will enter upon it , I persuade myself , under a becoming sense of its great importance to the happiness , both present and future , of those with whom they may be connected . —

    You will , therefore , my young friends , be very cautiows how you allow yourselves to think your task concluded , and your furniture of religious and moral knowledge complete . You have as yet ; only sketched , as it were , the great outline of the map of reli gious truth , marked out some o £ the chief

    boundaries and leading- features , and traced the general course of some of its principal rivers ; but you have still to Fill up the

    Untitled Article

    Intel ! igence . ~~ York Institulian . 407

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1809, page 407, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1738/page/53/