Maud may Babcock and the department of elocution at the University of Utah

The word "elocution,tt now a term of derision, was once a reputable term. The elocutionist was a much soughtafter individual who, as a public performer, was one of the major sources of entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the teachers of elocution were too often self-appointed itinerant instructors with no special training, and their students frequently reflected the artificiality which brought the term into disrepute. Successful itinerant-teachers often set up their own schools of elocution, but the art of elocution was considered by many as being restricted merely to entertainers, and many of the leading educat-ors in the colleges and universities of the United States did not consider it worthy of academic status or college credit.