1.G 01. The Nature of Illustration

The Nature of Illustration.

We have the best example of the use of illustration in the history of the education of the world from time immemorial. Experience has taught that not only are persons pleased by being instructed through illustration, but that they are more readily instructed thus, because, substantially, the mode in which we learn a new thing is by its being likened to something which we already know. This is the principle underlying all true illustrations. They are a kind of covert analogy, or likening of one thing to another, so that obscure things become plain, being represented pictorially or otherwise by things that are not obscure and that we are familiar with. So, then, the groundwork of all illustration is the familiarity of your audience with the thing on which the illustration stands. Now and then it will be proper to lay down and explain with particularity the fact out of which an illustration is to grow, and then to make the fact illustrate the truth to be made clear. The speaker will, for instance, undertake to explain, the isochronism of a watch, and having done this so that the audience will understand it, he may employ the watch in that regard as an illustration. But, generally, the subject-matter of an illustration should be that which is familiar to the minds of those to whom you are speaking.

It is not my province to go into the theoretical nature of the different kinds of illustration, of metaphors, similes, and what not; that you have learned in another department, both in your academical and collegiate courses. But I hope to give you some practical hints as to the manner of using these things.