Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/314

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GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND

expression through the tones and movements of the body, Professor Raymond made a thorough study, chiefly in Paris, of methods of cultivating and using the voice in both singing and speaking, and of representing thought and emotion through postures and gestures. It is the results of these studies that he afterward developed, first into his methods of teaching elocution and literature, and later into his esthetic system." The fundamental proposition of this system is that art is the representation of human thought and emotion through the use of forms borrowed from nature. This proposition, as applied equally to all the arts, his series of esthetic volumes may be said to be written to prove; and his own poetry he aims to have so written as to illustrate this.

On returning to America, he was pastor of the Presbyterian church of Darby, Pennsylvania, 1869-73, and professor of oratory at Williams college, 1874-81; and in intercollegiate contests in oratory and rhetoric, students trained by Professor Raymond won an exceptional number of honors. In 1880 he was called to a department of oratory and esthetic criticism, established especially for him, at Princeton. This position he resigned in 1893 on account of prolonged ill health, but was at once elected professor of esthetics with diminished duties; and he occupied the chair until 1905. He received the honorary degree of L.H.D. from Rutgers college, New Jersey, in 1883, and from Williams college, Massachusetts, in 1889. He belongs to the college fraternities of Kappa Alpha and Phi Beta Kappa; has been or now is a member of the Authors, Players, University, Century and National Arts clubs of New York, of the Nassau of Princeton, and of the Cosmos and University clubs of Washington; also of the Mayflower and Colonial Wars societies, of the National Elocution, Sculpture, Geographic and Archeologic Societies; of the American Philosophical Association; of the Academy of Political and Social Science; of the American Spelling Reform, Social Science, and Modern Language Associations; of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and of the American Philosophic Society, etc. He has been an advocate of spelling reform, restriction of child labor, and changes in educational methods, placing special emphasis upon the studies of the humanities and of art; upon which latter subject he has delivered courses of lectures in many colleges and universities. Among his published works are, "The Orator's Manual" (1879); "Modern Fishers of Men," a novel (1879); "A Life;