THE NEW DEBATING PLAN.

The plan announced by the Debating Council last night for conducting the work in debating during the coming year hits at the fundamental faults in the method in force during the past few years and should do much toward making debating more popular with upperclassmen. The experience of the past two years with the debating clubs proves conclusively that upperclassmen cannot or will not take the time to prepare formal debates at regular intervals and that they are not, as a rule, interested in listening to the dry statistical discussion that such debates generally call forth at club meetings. They prefer rather to get enough general information on public questions to serve as a basis for clear thinking and informal discussion.

This is just what the plan of the Debating Council makes possible by encouraging the organization of informal groups of congenial men for purposes of discussion, to whom it offers the advantage of the helpful, frank criticism of older and experienced debaters,--an inducement which was formerly held out to the clubs. A recent writer in the Monthly complained justly of the deplorable lack of interest shown by undergraduates in important current public questions and we are continually being urged to take an active interest in these questions by prominent men who visit us, as we were by the Bishop of London Tuesday night. The proposed plan for informal congenial discussion groups furnishes an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with such public questions during the coming winter, and to get valuable training in preparation for the Pasteur Medal debate this fall and the University debates next spring.