First appearing in 1797, The Columbian Orator, a collection of political essays, poems, and dialogues, was widely used in American schoolrooms in the first quarter of the nineteenth century to teach reading and speaking. Many of the speeches included in the anthology celebrated "republican" virtues and promoted patriotism, and this was typical of many readers of that period. The Columbian Orator is an example of progymnasmata

Progymnasmata

Progymnasmata are rhetorical exercises gradually leading the student to familiarity with the elements of rhetoric, in preparation for their own practice speeches and ultimately their own orations.Both Hermogenes of Tarsus and Aelius Festus Aphthonius wrote treatises containing progymnasmata...

, containing examples for students to copy and imitate. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist writer Douglass describes how he "got hold" of a copy of the Columbian Orator at age 12, an event with far-reaching consequences for his life.

The Columbian Orator, became a symbol not only of human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

, but also of the power of eloquence and articulation.

Details

• Full title: The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces Together With Rules, Which Are Calculated to Improve Youth and Others, in the Ornamental and Using Art of Eloquence.
• Caleb Bingham
  Caleb Bingham
  Caleb Bingham was a textbook author of late 18th-century New England, whose works were also influential into the 19th and 20th. Among his most influential works were books on oratory, or public speaking. A native of Salisbury, Connecticut, he spent much of his career in Boston, Massachusetts as...
  
   (Editor), 1797.
• David W. Blight (Editor), Bicentenni edition 1998, (ISBN 0-8147-1323-8).

Quotes

"I well remember, when I was a boy, how ardently I longed for the opportunity of reading, but had no access to a library", Caleb Bingham

Caleb Bingham

Caleb Bingham was a textbook author of late 18th-century New England, whose works were also influential into the 19th and 20th. Among his most influential works were books on oratory, or public speaking. A native of Salisbury, Connecticut, he spent much of his career in Boston, Massachusetts as...

, 1803.

"Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book", Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

, 1845.

External links

• The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces, Together with Rules, Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of Eloquence. 19th Century Schoolbooks Collection, Digital Research Library, University of Pittsburgh.
• The Influence of The Columbian Orator – "E Pluribus Unum Project," Assumption College.