Oscar Westers On the cult of simplicity, fashion and pompousness. Chambers of rhetoric and the Society for Public Welfare in the nineteenth century
During the second half of the nineteenth century, a new type of cultural association developed in Dutch society-life: the chamber of rhetoric declamation. The rhetoricians, as the members called themselves, read aloud poetry and prose and commented upon each other's pronunciation and gesticulation, in an effort to improve their oratorical skills. The roots of these associations can, especially on the countryside, be found in the local divisions of the Society for Public Welfare. While the rhetoricians in their pursuit of a higher standard for declamatory art often lost themselves in mediocre amateur theatricals, the Society for Public Welfare prefered more and more professional speakers. The smaller Society-divisions, with their small estimates, could not afford to arrange these touring public performers and so depended more or less on local rhetoricians. This difference between requirement and practical potential, evoked tensions.
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