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382. But inability to get to the point of a speech, or to stop when one is through, indicates more than a failure to sense the audience; it is usually excellent evidence of poor Analysis of the whole question. The speaker has not decided upon the most important point; he has allowed himself to ramble on through an aimless talk, trusting to providence and the intuition of his hearers to extract the kernel of fact from the shell of verbiage. Perhaps his confidence will be justified; It is not safe, however, to presume too far. It is much better to follow the example of Benjamin Franklin once more, of whom John Adams said that he never spoke for five minutes in the Continental Congress without "putting his shoulder to the hub of the wheel." His scientific mind analyzed things in advance; when he talked he went straight to the heart of the question, leaving the nonessentials to be discussed by other persons. 383. "But," you answer, "I have not the genius of a Roosevelt or a Franklin; what good is there hi holding up such examples to me, plain John Smith? How can I get any help from these geniuses? " The answer is simple: by applying to your own problems, with all the skill that you can command, the methods which they used. Study your audience in advance; ask questions about your material; decide what is the most important thing you have to say; decide how best to use the precious first two minutes, and the equally precious last one. Very probably Franklin did not go through such a process every time he rose in Congress; but it is certain that during his early years he trained himself consciously and carefully in just such analytical methods, so that by 1775 his mind instinctively made the analyses necessary for successful argument....