Prof. James C. Monaghan, lecturer

              Prof. James C. Monaghan
LECTURER
SUBJECTS:
America— The Land of Opportunities.
How the Other Half Lives.
Joan of Arc.
Education and Life.
Socialism.

JAMES    C.    MONAGHAN
Introductory

As a personal indorsement of Prof. J. C. Monaghan and his great lectures, we quote the follow¬ing from the December issue of the Columbiad, the official organ of the Knights of Columbus.
ROF. JAMES C. MONAGHAN, of New York, well known as an educator and orator, is a man of exceptional talent and a conspicuous example of the highest type of Catholic citizenship. As an educator, writer, lecturer and public officer he has given abundant proof, not only of great ability and indefatigable energy, but of high devotion to Christian ideals. He has held a place on the faculty boards of Wisconsin and Notre Dame Universities, and was Dean of the history and economics courses at Notre Dame during September and December, 1907, having to give up the position in order to fill engagements on the lecture platform.
For several years he was prominently identified with the consular service.
The following splendid estimate of Prof. Monaghan as an orator comes from the pen of Denis A. McCarthy, associate editor of the Sacred Heart Review:
It is hard to tell accurately wherein lies the power of Prof. Monaghan over his audiences. It is not so much in the words he utters, though they are always distinguished by force and scholarship and literary flavor. Nor is it in an abundance of action, wherewith some speakers seek to help out their delivery. He stands for the most part with hand in his pockets, or with one hand in his pocket and the other holding his glasses.    He never saws the air or indulges in any school-of-elocution gymnastics.
He begins his addresses without any of those airy flourishes, those cut-and-dried formulas which we have cause to fear. His introduction is spoken in low, even conversational tones, and for the first few sentences his hearers may be pardoned for a somewhat vague feeling of uneasiness. But they sit up and take notice when he begins to tell, in his own inimitable way, some little story that has them all laughing before they are aware; and then, when, with a swift change of manner, he suddenly grows intensely serious and, reaching down into the depths of his soul, brings up some solemn and heart-searching thought, some question of morals or ethics; when he unrolls it from its complex wrappings before his audience, and examines and probes it in keen and flashing sentences; and when he drives home, with with glowing eyes and terrible earnestness, the lesson drawn therefrom to the very hearts of his hearers— then it is that the wonderful force and power and charm throbbing in that slender frame begins to manifest itself.
And so he goes on—marshalling facts, citing examples, piling up evidence in support of his thesis, running into all sorts of by-paths of history or literature after this piece of interesting knowledge or that; stopping to tell a side-splitting story, or to relate some pathetic incident illustrative of his subject; and always with irresistible logic, moving toward the point he wishes to make, the truth he wishes to bring out, the assertion he wishes to prove, until his hearers, unmindful of last trains or departing owl-cars, sit enchanted beneath the wizardry of his eloquence.
Monaghan is the one and only man who makes figures interesting—to me, at least. Since my school days I have had a perfect horror of all kinds of statistics, and usually when any public speaker begins to talk figures I drift out into the night air. But not so with Monaghan. When he begins to juggle tons of coal and bushels of wheat and barrels of flour and percentages and fractions and steamships and product and outputs and tariffs and waterways and railroads, and all such generally dry and dusty subjects, he makes them mean something to me.
Instead of a nuisance and a bore, figures become to me as interesting as a fine story or a splendid poem, when they and their meaning fall from the lips of Prof. Monaghan.
I have heard him several times, always with the greatest pleasure and profit to myself; always satisfied that he has spoken the true and timely and earnest word in the true and sincere and felicitous way; and always puzzled as to how exactly to account for the spell which he weaves over an audience. There is only one word to describe it, and that is genius. But it is more than genius. It is the power of the Man Who Knows.

PRESS COMMENTS
One of the surprising things in Prof. Monaghan is that he can speak on so many themes with equal ease and eloquence. A friend of ours, on hearing him give a descriptive lecture, pronounced his word pictures unsurpassed. Another commends his humor and another his keen analysis. In this lecture he discusses, "How the Other Half Lives.''
Sheboygan Press, Dec, 14, 1909. If someone was to ask wherein lies the great power of  Prof. J. C. Monaghan  as  a lecturer it would be a question hard to answer.
His appearance is not striking. He lacks the commanding appearance of the average orator but what he lacks in this respect he makes up in fire when he launches into his subject. He commenced his lecture last evening with a few commonplace remarks, nothing impressive, and then he appealed to his audience through the poets words. He has a wonderful power in this line and as he recited first from one author and then another, the talent possessed by Prof. Monaghan shone forth, he had gained a hold upon the large audience. As he carried the people across the Atlantic and from one country to another they followed, anxious to drink in every word he uttered. When he tells a story he tells it so that his audience can easily grasp the full meaning and while one minute they may be carried away with laughter the next he has them following him with faces as serious as his, as he recites some pathetic incident in the lives of the people of some foreign country.
You may gather your highly colored pictures depicting life abroad, and use the finest equipment in throwing them on the screen, but give to the people a man like Prof. Monaghan and let him draw and present his own pictures, in his style and it will far outshine or outlive the pictures of a Lyman Howe or any of the great travelers. Prof. Monaghon has visited every country, he has studied the conditions, and he is prepared to give to an audience a picture true to life and when his pictures are shown they have a tone, a retouching that not even the artist can improve upon. HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES is a vivid story as told by Prof. Monaghan.
Beloit Daily News, Nov. 17, 1909. Prof. Monaghan is a fine orator and witty stories and clear-drawn  illustrations of the points he brought out made his speech exceedingly interesting.
PRESS   COMMENTS
We have known of Prof. Monaghan for a number of years and have heard two of his lectures and are therefore able to speak from personal knowledge when we say that in keenness of vision, scholarly analysis, and eloquent marshalling of facts, he stand without an equal on the American platform.    From a single lecture tour in Wisconsin we select the following notices:
Kenosha Evening News, Nov. 19, 1909.
Prof. Monaghan is known in America and Europe as one of the greatest scholars of the age. He served eleven years as United States Consul to Germany, was professor of sociology and economics at the University of Wisconsin from where he was called by President Roosevelt to organize and head the new department of labor and commerce. Mr. Monaghan is now president of the New York School of Technology and professor of social economics at Notre Dame University.
Beloit Daily Free Press, Nov. 17, 1909.
The big special feature of the evening of course was Prof. J. C. Monaghan of Notre Dame University, who spoke on Joan of Arc, who has recently been beatified at Rome, nearly 500 years after the events in which she figured as a saver of France.
Prof. Monaghan is an orator of great power and a word painter of rare ability. He painted a pretty picture of the home life of the peasants in France to-day, where the same life of simplicity reigns now as in the time the maid of Orleans received her call to crown Charles VII King of France.
Beloit Daily News, Nov. 17, 1909.
Knights of Columbus Hall was crowded to the doors and the great audience listened to a lecture by Prof. J. C. Monaghan of Notre Dame University, which was one of the most brilliant and scholarly efforts ever heard in this city.
Prof. Monaghan's subject was "Joan of Arc," but was more than that, in that he digressed enough to touch upon many vital and engrossing matters.
Humor, drama, pathos and philosophy, skillfully and intelligently employed, all combined to make the speech a masterpiece of beauty and an intellectual treat of the highest order.
It was an address which cannot be reproduced in type. No reviewer can do it justice and for that reason only some of the most important portions can be touched upon.
Darlington Republican-Journal.
The lecture delivered by Prof. J. C. Monaghan under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus at the opera house in this city on Thursday evening drew a crowded house, and those fortunate enough to attend heard one of the ablest and most profound lectures ever delivered in the city.
Prof. Monaghan took for his subject "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality'' and handled it in a masterly manner. He gave anarchy and socialism a merciless scoring and then turned his attention to the demagogues who "from chautauqua platforms and on the stump graft and bribe the populace through the heartstrings of the young and impressionable.'' He said there was no place in America for any flag but the Stars and Stripes, except the white flag of peace, typical of the Christ.
The lecture was a powerful antidote for the poison and virus that have been injected into the hearts and minds of the people by selfish and ambitious men who have been preaching the doctrines of discontent and class hatred.
Ashland News, Nov. 30, 1009.