Edward Amherst Ott

              Edward Amherst Ott AUTHOR OF PERSONALITY AND VOCATION
Appears here in one of his Art of Living Lectures
FORM 272-1


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© 1922 Beidler, Chicago



Press and Personal Comment Concerning the EDWARD AMHERST OTT Publications and Services

Press Comments

St. Louis, Mo.—A Notable Return Date.
Edward Amherst Ott, who will appear here soon, spoke under the auspices of the Citizens' Industrial Association of St. Louis to an audience of 3,000 people.  He had spoken before this audience once before, and is said to be the only Lyceum lecturer who has ever had a return date here.


Memphis, Tenn.—C. C. Ogilvie, Superintendent of Goodwyn Institute Lyceum Course, writes:
They appreciated Mr. Ott's ability as an orator, and the forceful and effective way with which he dealt with the vital subjects discussed.  He sees clearly and originally, and presents what he has seen and thought with great logic and force.
I know that the Memphis people would be glad to hear his messages year after year from the Goodwyn Institute platform.



Bedford, Indiana:
All agreed that this lecture was the best effort ever put forth in Bedford, and this is saying a great deal, as we have had some very good lecturers here.


Hope, Ark.:
He charms, he thrills, he excites, he stimulates, he enthuses, he amuses, he feeds us upon the solid food for which the soul hungers.  We rise to the sublime height of possibility, and basx in the real light of realized hopes for solutions of the vexing problems that come under the head of sociology while he speaks.


Montgomery, Ala.:
He literally carried his audience by storm, and already they clamor for a return engagement.  I wish to thank you for persisting in our having him, and to assure you that he left a wealth of thoughts behind him.



Personal Appreciations
Woodbridge N. Ferris, United States Senator from Michigan:

It would be difficult to find in America any man who has done more for the American platform, more for the inspiration of American youth than Edward Amherst Ott.  He has never seemed to care for wealth; his whole soul has been bound up in the welfare and progress of humanity.

Charles Clayton Morrison, Editor of The Christian Century:

You will remember that our acquaintance extends back very nearly to the beginning of this third of a century.  I wish to bear my testimony to the inspiring influence which your teaching and your character have brought to the lives of so many people.  In your school work and on the lecture platform you have always kept before you the very highest ideals, and one cannot help feeling that the success you have attained is not merely a personal achievement but an actual furtherance of the good causes which you have championed like the true prophet that you have always been.

Mr. William R. Bennett:

I have always looked up to you as a master of public speech, the Dean of us all.

J. A. Bumstead, Assistant Lyceum Manager, Columbus Office of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau:

Since I first entered the Lyceum business, your name always has stood out as one of the few real leaders on the platform, and it always has been a sort of satisfaction to be associated with one whom both our Redpath folks, as well as our competitors, set up as the standard by which all other platform men are measured.

Mr. J. S. Knox, President of the Knox School of Salesmanship and Business Efficiency, Chicago, Ill.:

I do not believe I would ever have been able to have reached the point where such income was possible without the fundamental instruction in Public Speaking which I received in your classes.  You furnished the inspiration and the technical knowledge which made this possible.

The Lyceum News, Chicago:

Edward Amherst Ott, notable lecturer and educator, is one of the real leaders in the Lyceum field.  Mr. Ott is a finished orator, a man who knows all the arts of the public speaker and is able to give to his really worthwhile messages the added advantage of a powerful delivery.  The subject-matter of the Ott lectures has been gleaned from a life-time's consecrated study.  Mr. Ott's vision of the Lyceum is always the very highest and broadest, and that he brings to a community, lectures of definite value is attested by the fact that he is constantly being called upon to fill return engagements, sometimes going back four or five times to the same town.

Wallace Bruce Amsbary, Author:

We of the Lyceum and Chautauqua have always looked toward you as a leader and an ideal to point the way.  You have been true to this leadership and, for this, we are all grateful.

Senator Albert B. Cummings:

He is an accomplished speaker, and a close and indefatigable student.



Personality and Vocation
J. E. Van Natta, President, Ithaca Advertising Club:

Many expressions of appreciation have come to our Club from the business men who attended the Vocational Institute you recently conducted for us.  They were all very much impressed with the necessity of directing efforts for personnel improvement.

We take this opportunity of expressing our thanks to you for the help to our members and the service to the Institutions that co-operated.

The Lyceum Magazine:

'The Ott System for Personality Grading' by Edward Amherst Ott, well-known lecturer, has been installed in schools in Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky.  Also the Board of Education of the City of New York has passed upon his 'Personality and Vocation' text favorably.  This attitude of the Board of Education of the largest city in the United States is significant.

William A. Boyd, Vice-President of the First National Bank of Ithaca, and Chairman of the Educational Committee, Advertising Club of Ithaca:

In behalf of the Advertising Club of Ithaca, permit me to express to you our grateful appreciation for the benefits derived not only by the members of our Club, but also by the additional attendants who formed the six classes you conducted for our Club at the recent Vocational Institute held in the rooms of the Ithaca Chamber of Commerce.

You will be pleased to know that after announcing the above course to the public, it was necessary for us to change the lecture room in order to accommodate the large number who desired to avail themselves of the unusual opportunity you afforded them.

L. P. Jones, Superintendent of Schools, Providence, Ky.:

I am glad to report that we are highly pleased with the results of the Ott Grading System attained thus far in our schools.  The students take a great interest in their grades each month.  The fact that I have had less trouble with the deportment this year than in all my experience in school work is sufficient proof that this system is of great value.

Ralph C. Smith, Secretary of the Ithaca Chamber of Commerce:

Dr. Ott's course on Personality Grading with lectures and text could be scheduled with great advantage, it would seem, by Merchants' Bureaus of Chambers of Commerce and other commercial and industrial organizations, for it aims to improve one of the most important factors limiting the growth and development of many concerns—the character of its personnel.



Correspondence Course
I recommend your Course as the best I have ever known anything about.

I attribute what little success I have made in Rogers and the State to the work done under you.  You have helped me to systematize my work and that has enabled me to do a lot more work.

The work sheets of Lesson No. 4 go out with this letter.  The more I acquaint myself with the Personality Chart the better I like it.  I have the whole Record well in mind.  The work appeals to me more now than ever.  Your last letter helped to make the matter clear relative to the lecture field.  I am convinced that the Ott Course is the best.

To me, to help even just one fellow to find his job and encourage him to go to it is reward for a year's work.  You are doing it for scores and hundreds.  It is worth thirty years of hard work that you have been doing to see such results.

I have just finished another lesson of your valuable course.  This lesson was an 'eye-opener' to me.  The return lessons with your criticisms are a valuable part of the Course.

I thank you for the help you have been to me thus far, and I am pleased to acknowledge my gratitude.



Thought Organizing Chart
Rev. Martin D. Hardin, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Ithaca, N.Y.:

Your Thought Organizing Chart for the preparation of sermons is admirable.  I have no doubt that men would be greatly strengthened in their pulpit power if they would make use of your suggestions and helpful outline.  The big arrow points to the main thing in the construction of every good sermon—indefiniteness there scatters like bird-shot instead of penetrating like a bullet.  I could wish that every minister held himself to your plan.

A. E. Fish, Professor of Public Speaking in the Teachers' College at Cedar Falls, Iowa.:

I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed the use of your Thought Organizing Charts in my classes in Public Speaking.  They have the rare virtue of centering the attention on the vital purposes of public speech and increase their interest in the job.  You would be delighted to witness the improvements, which have taken place and the permanent interest which has been aroused in the art of persuasive speech.





The Art of Living Lectures

1.  Personality and Vocation

At last we are confident that there is a plan that will really develop manly character in boys.  We have been interested in the Iowa prize plan and in all that has been written about character training, but nothing has seemed to us adequate to produce results.  We have seen much that emphasized the need, much that talked about psychology, much that was highly sentimental, but Edward Amherst Ott of the Ithaca Conservatory of Music and Allied Schools seems to us to strike a note that rings true; that is sure to bring results if it is followed skilfully.
His keynote is that conduct alone makes and demonstrates character; that conduct and character must be the result of personal functioning; that no one demonstrates character except through personal conduct.

DR. A. E. WINSHIP, in “The Journal of Education.”


2. Sour Grapes—A Popular Lecture on Heredity.
Edward Amherst Ott is a pioneer in popularizing biological ethics.  Eugenics is not a fad with him.  He correlates a knowledge of the laws of breeding with practical, social, and ethical problems.  Sour Grapes has been delivered over 5,000 times, and has been heard by over a million people.



3. The Spenders
This lecture, The Spenders, is Mr. Ott's contribution to the War on Poverty.  It sounds a sane, clear, helpful note.  It has many lessons for immediate use—and a far-seeing vision.  Many say it is his best lecture.  There is a sound, social philosophy in all of the Ott Lectures.




Personality and Vocation

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Publications and Services

This text is the guide to the Ott System of Grading for Personal Efficiency and Success.  It is used in schools, homes, and business houses.



Other Publications


How to Use the Voice
$ 1.50


How to Gesture
1.50


Thought Organizing Charts (100)
3.00


The Technique of Community Events
3.00


The Speech Arts Quiz
10.00



A hand-book of 1,316 questions for public speakers and teachers of Oral English and Expression.



Texts Used in the Ott Correspondence Course in Public Speaking and Leadership

How to Use the Voice


This Correspondence Course is approved as a Correspondence School under the laws of the State of New York.


How to Gesture






PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT RECORD Copyright 1925 by EDWARD AMHERST OTT

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING PERSONALITY RECORDS
Parents and individuals using the Ott Personality Chart should secure a notebook, and devote one page to each unit on the Chart as follows: A1-Time Values, A2-Initiative, etc.

A good act is credited with a plus sign and a poor record by a minus sign.  Grading by percentages should not be attempted by untrained observers.

Grade the individual acts, and make no attempt to pass judgments on the character of the person being graded.  The cumulative record in plus and minus signs is the only safe judgment.

One act may require several plus or minus signs.  Every act, good or bad, reveals positive values.  The boy, who is boisterous, may get a plus for Action, another plus for Alertness, and another for Forcefulness.  After recording the plus credits, he would be given a minus in Courtesy and perhaps another in Community Welfare.

As the plus and minus signs accumulate in the record you will have a picture of personality and abilities that will help in choosing a vocation wisely.

Complete detailed instructions for the use of the Personality Development Record and for Vocational Studies are contained in the text Personality and Vocation.  This large loose-leaf book is adaptable to individual and school uses.



Single copies of Chart, 10c; $3.00 per hundred Personality and Vocation
$5.00



Quantity prices on application.
EDWARD AMHERST OTT Publications and Services ITHACA CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC AND AFFILIATED SCHOOLS Ithaca, New York

Instructions for installing the Ott System of Grading in Schools and Industries are contained in the text Personality and Vocation.




From the Pottsville Republican Oct. 21, 1926

Reporting The Schuylkill County Teacher's Institute



Dr. Tigert's Tribute to Edward Amherst Ott of Ithaca, N. Y.
There are less than ten wonderful speakers in this country today and a peer among speakers is the man who preceded me on the stage this afternoon.  It is sacrilege for me to attempt to give a talk after hearing such a splendid address, which was a master piece of philosophy, wit, humor, subtility, sympathy, an address which was more than worth my while coming from Washington, D. C. to hear.

Thus in part did Dr. John J. Tigert, United States commissioner of education, pay tribute to Dr. Edward Amherst Ott, after the latter had concluded his address on Sour Grapes at the Wednesday afternoon session of the Schuylkill County teachers' institute.

Continuing in his praise of Dr. Ott, Commissioner Tigert said: Conwell had his Acres of Diamond's; Byron his Prince of Peace, but Dr. Ott's Sour Grapes surpasses them.  I have travelled more than 300,000 miles throughout this nation; I have spoken in every state in the Union, but this address was one of the greatest that I have ever had the pleasure and privilege of hearing.

Public speaking is an art in passing, yes, almost a lost art.  There are not many people who can really speak before a gathering and Dr. Ott is one of the rarest of these rare people.  Dr. Ott is the last of the prophets of the Chau tauqua.  Byron is gone and so are the rest, but Dr. Ott still lives and his work will live long after he has gone.  As a speaker he is a genius, as an educator, a leader of leaders.