THE DEBATING UNION

When the Debating Union holds its initial meeting of the year this evening in the Faculty Room of the Union, all students in the University are once more offered the opportunity to develop their forensic abilities. If there is one thing which the debates with Oxford should have taught Harvard students, it is that debating is a game, not a business. The Oxford and Cambridge Unions give English college youth a valuable training in public speaking which many of them later turn to effective account on the floor of Parliament. If enough public spirited students at Harvard would embrace the opportunities the Debating Union offers, debating could be made just as fashionable here as in the English Universities.

The subject for this first debate, far from being a metaphysical question for abstract reasoning, calls for the sort of treatment in which witty sallies and spirited repartee have a prominent place. "Resolved: That Harvard Should Be More Collegiate" is a subject which should bring out all the champions of Harvard Orthodoxy in defense of traditional indifference. The affirmative side, likewise, should have a numerous representation, and they might very properly enliven the evening by appearing dressed for their part in artistically decorated yellow slickers, stick candy hat bands and great-necked campus sweaters.

The success of the Debating Union this year will depend very largeley on the success of this first debate. All students who hope to enter public life should make it their business that the Debating Union be perpetuated at Harvard to contribute to Harvard education that which, from the age of Demosthenes to the present, has rightfully been conceded a prominent place in a liberal education.