PREFACE
It is now several years since I began to consider the propriety of making a collection of the famous orations of the world for the benefit of students, and with that purpose in view, wherever an opportunity offered, I have conferred with men who were able and willing to give advice as to the selections. At first my intention was to use only enough orations for a single volume, but I afterward became convinced that the plan suggested to me by the publishers of this collection would be a better one, namely: to select enough of the great orations to fill ten volumes, but so to group them as to permit of division into volumes arranged chronologically as to countries.
In selecting the more important of the great speeches there is little room for the exercise of
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