Is it better to be rich than poor ?

Has the steam-engine been a greater benefit to the world than has the telegraph ?

Is pauperism more the result of untoward circumstances than of individual inefficiency?

Was the Spanish-American war justifiable?

Should the United States annex the Philippine Islands?

Having selected your subject, marshal your knowledge of that subject. If necessary, add to that knowledge by research. If possible, select a topic upon which you are able to speak immediately. Assume the Initial position. Use a full, round tone, with time, pitch, force, and quality suited to the subject. Form in your mind an analysis of the subject. This analysis will at first consist of a few comprehensive divisions. By practice the outline is more quickly formed and gives more detail. From the outline frame your speech, working out the subdivisions as fast as you are able.

Do not be discouraged if at the first attempt you are unable to formulate your analysis. Remember the process by which you formed the written analysis in Exercise VII. Persevere and practise, and the work of preparation outlined in the preceding exercises will prove its worth. You will succeed, and by your success will have become an extemporaneous speaker.

Province of Debate-Choosing, Stating, and Defining the Question -Opening and Closing Arguments-The Burden of Proof-Management of Debate-The Time Limit-Following the Theme-Skill in Speaking.

THES

Province of
Debate.

HE term debate has a wide significance. It is by no means confined to those formal occasions when disputants meet in a public place or at the bar to argue their differences before an audience or a jury. The world is full of controversy, and has been since the beginning. Political and social questions are subjects for debate whenever men meet, and religion has been a fruitful source of contention in families and neighborhoods, as well as in synods, conferences, and other ecclesiastical gatherings. The school debating society, the lyceum, the town meeting, and the legislative assembly are institutions that have flourished. in America. There is an important sense, indeed, in which we are a nation of debaters. What is pub

lic opinion or public policy in this Republic, but principles given shape and form in the crucible of universal discussion? The daily and weekly Press

is practically a means of giving publicity and circulation to current discussion. Periodicals put it in more condensed and better literary form, and the outgrowth of debate in the school of universal enlightenment is finally recorded in books and treasured in libraries.

The importance of debate, then, cannot be overestimated. Its study becomes essential to well rounded education, and the reason for its extended consideration in a general work on public speaking is too obvious for comment.

"Debate is older than language, and is in fact common among creatures which have no speech, such as babes and bees. Debaters have had both Universality power and reputation as far back as

"Nestor, the master of persuasive speech,

of Debate.

The clear-toned Pylian orator, whose tongue
Dropped words more sweet than honey.'

Indeed, the first book of the Iliad is little more than a record of a tumultuous debating society which sadly needed the restraints of Jefferson's Manual. Themistocles reached the climax of dramatic debate in his 'Strike, but hear me.' The Icelanders loved a wrangle and plied each other with the subtlest legal arguments over Burnt Njal, till the inevitable moment came when the crust over the Icelandic volcanic temper broke up, and the contestants clenched their arguments with battleaxes. Cicero seems to have preferred those debates in which he had no opponent. For debatable questions the world has never found a lack. Religion has furnished an array of fatally attractive subjects, from the differences between Socrates and the Sophists down to

the defence of Anne Hutchinson against the orthodox Massachusetts clergy; politics is, rightly construed, only organized discussion; and social questions have been the dividing wedge in families and communities ever since people became aware that they had neighbors with whom to dispute."

The

The first requisite in formal discussion is a debatable question. In debates such as are undertaken in educational institutions or in lyceums, Question. choosing the question is an important though not generally a difficult task. Among the many subjects of discussion constantly before the world and claiming its attention, it is an easy matter to find one suitable for debate. Living questions or those having present interest are always preferable to those buried in the past. In preparing for debate, possibly practical knowledge can be better gained by discussing a fresh subject than one which would lead the investigator only to dusty library shelves for information and material. For lively and interesting discussion at the time of this writing, a question relating to the unjust treatment of Alfred Dreyfus would be preferable to one having reference to the aged prisoner of Chillon. In like manner, debaters would naturally take greater interest in the contemplated annexation of the Philippines to the United States, than in the discussion of the colonial policy of Great Britain in India or Egypt. Why General Shafter paused before the trenches of Santiago, is also a better theme for debate than why Julius Cæsar paused at the Rubicon.

Formulating the question comes next in order,

and at this point care and thought are necessary. The question should be reduced to a Formulating single proposition, and that must be de- the Question. batable. Resolved: That the Caucasian is a white man, is not a debatable question. There are no black Caucasians. Resolved: That a republican. form of government is unsuited to France, is debatable in the light of what has recently transpired in that country.

Having decided upon the question and having reduced it to writing, it is important that its terms. should be clearly defined. Much of the Defining the

Question.

contention in courts turns upon the meaning of words in law, and religious controversies have been waged for centuries over the meaning of the term, to baptize. It is important that the leading disputants should agree upon the obvious meaning of the terms contained in the proposition for debate.

Suppose, for example, that the question chosen for discussion reads, Resolved: That territorial expansion would be detrimental to the

United States. The definition of terms would be as follows:

Illustration.

Territorial expansion, means permanent acquisition of territory, without reference to the prospective political status of its inhabitants.

Detrimental, means injurious to the political interests of the United States.

The United States, means the nation.

"To find satisfactory definitions," says Mr. Baker in