Public Speaking's History: Demosthenes' Pebbles to Kishida Toshiko's Boxes

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Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, is traced in this episode to an evolutionary theory: to early humans, many eyes locked on you meant you were being hunted. The story of mastering that fear begins in Athens with Demosthenes, orphaned at seven and robbed of his inheritance by three guardians. With a weak voice, a speech impediment and stage fright, he spoke with pebbles in his mouth, ran uphill while projecting his voice, and practiced in an underground study before a mirror. He won his lawsuit and later delivered the Philippics and Olynthiacs against Philip II of Macedon. Aristotle's Rhetoric set out ethos, pathos and logos, and Cicero's five canons of invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery gave Rome a step-by-step method.

Other traditions built different tools. In ancient India the Vedas, Upanishads and Mahabharata used rhythm and intonation so oral knowledge would survive, while Chinese rhetoric paired wen, ornate delivery, with zhi, substance, and was aimed upward at rulers, judged by precedent, effect on common people and relevance to the state. For centuries women in the United States were barred from courtrooms, the Senate floor and most pulpits. Frances Wright, Maria Stewart in Boston in 1832, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké from 1837 to 1839 spoke anyway. After World War II the ornate style gave way to plain, data-driven speech, and Sputnik's 1957 launch sped the telecommunications that now carry talks to millions.

• Roman orators memorized hours of speech by placing its parts in the rooms of an imagined house.
• In 1883 Kishida Toshiko told 600 people in Meiji Japan about Daughters Kept in Boxes and was arrested.
• Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 and used militant oratory to demand the vote.
• Malala Yousafzai spoke in Peshawar against the Taliban's education ban and won the Nobel Peace Prize at 17.
• Harold Lasswell's model asks who says what in which channel to whom with what effect, and William R. Brown's theory treats speech as an intervention in reality.