OCR Text |
Show would not be objectionable, if only the judges were properly selected. In general, however, debating judges are unsatisfactory for four reasons. They are usually men from the near locality of the home school; they are usually unacquainted with the intricacies of present-day collegiate debating; they are often prejudiced on the public question under discussion; and their knowledge of the proposition for debate is rarely adequate for the work of judging fairly. The judges themselves, of course, are not to blame. The schools, through an over eagerness to win, fear to deal openly with one another.Yet even if the accuracy of debating decisions could never be questioned, we should still forbear attaching first importance to victory or defeat. The chief value of argumentation and debate lies in contributing to intellectual training rather than to undergraduate notoriety. To realize something of the possibilities of exhaustive research, to separate what one knows only vaguely from what one knows precisely, to distinguish good evidence and clear logic from bad evidence and false reasoning, to approach a partisan proposition with unbiased mind, to investigate both sides of a dispute equally and suspend judgment until all the facts are at hand, to be absolutely fair to an opponent at all times-this is the contribution of debating to our educational life.It has been admitted that defective delivery was the chief weakness of this year's debating. This admission requires a word of explanation. Within the quiet limits of a small argumentation class the University of Utah is working out an ideal of public speaking which will be inappreciably beneficial to the student in after days. There are two methods of training for public address; one gives immediate and transitory results, the other slow but ultimately permanent results. One method usually includes a superficial knowledge of the question enforced by a memoriter presentation. The other method demands an exhaustive and precise knowledge, aided by careful and logical analysis, and presented in extempore speeches. This last is the debating ideal of the University. It is an ideal which can rarely be more than approximated by amateur speakers. The beginner is more likely of early success by the memoriter method, but his early success means nothing more than winning a college debate under most artificial conditions. The method of exhaustive intellectual preparation presented in extempore speeches, though not so attractive in its first results, supplies the student with the fundamental bone and muscle of his craft. With the one further addition of experience, he loses his pristine awkwardness and ultimately develops into the powerful and satisfying public speaker. America has many public speakers, but comparatively few who can master and absorb an audience; and part of the reason is that methods appropriate to the drama and the stage are likewise so extensively employed in training for public address.(125) |