HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

There is to be Inter-house Debating. While this will not rescue many golden minutes from dissipation in the Boylston Street beer gardens, it is to be put in the general category of steps-forward. There are several reasons for this. The first and most banal is that anything labeled inter-house is to be regarded favorably, if merely as a consolation to Mr. Harkness. Next there comes the consideration of the effect on the college. This should be beneficial if the debates do, as their advocates pretend, put the high bat on the bull session and conserve all the forensic skill hitherto wasted on the steps of Sever, in witching hour wrangles over the meaning of life, and to Jack the bartender at the Theatrical. Lastly, it is urged not without sound reason, many an unsuspected leader of men will first find winged words in the unintimidating atmosphere of a forum of his peers.

In spite of this adamantine logic favoring the scheme, there is a danger that inter-house debating, like so many good and moral things, may be too delicate a flower for the harsh breath of existence, and so fall and wither away from lack of strength. The one iron and strychnine tonic to prevent this disaster is Interest. To quicken interest there is one sure formula, to capture fancy in the topic for debate. If the sponsors of the innovation act wisely, they will not choose exotic and ephemeral topics for their discussions, such as the intellectual status of the undergraduate, or the advisability of placing drinking fountains in Mallinckrodt, or the necessity of forcing conformity on the faces of Memorial Hall clock. They will go to the present bull session, and there find subjects suited to the intelligence and grasp of the college student, and lurid enough to hold his wandering inner gaze. If these matters be important and serious, well and good; if not, still well and good, for no one will discern the difference or care.