SCHOOL DEBATING

The announcement of the exhibition debate between Harvard and Bates at Milton Academy promises that something will be done for preparatory school debating. The purpose is to revive interest in formal discussion among the prominent schools of the vicinity.

Recently preparatory school debating has become, to all intents and purposes, non-existent. Some of the causes for this condition are the same which have retarded the development of college debating. Probably the fundemental reason can be found in this quotation from a recent bulletin of a school which until a few years ago had enjoyed a brilliant reputation in debating circles:

"Preparatory school boys knew that debating could win them little prestige in the college community: that it appealed to but few of the undergraduates--that it opened the doors to no clubs."

This is a frank statement of the psychology behind the preparatory schoolboy's attitude toward college. Athletics and social success loom over-whelmingly large; the activities of the mind are dwarfed into insignificance. It is the same psychology which remains to a less extent behind the attitude of some undergraduates toward the college. It is the same psychology which makes the mention of the college in the metropolitan newspapers depend in nine cases out of ten upon athletic achievement. Opposed to it is the increasing undergraduate interest in the curriculum, in educational experiments, in the expression of student opinion, in the amazing revival of intercollegiate debating in the last few years, in literary, dramatic and journalistic achievement.

Probably the most effective means for the restoration of a proper balance between these activities, and athletics and social success, in the schoolboy, and also in the undergraduate mind, is wide publicity and active proselyting, methods which have heretofore been largely confined to athletics. The exhibition debate at Milton Academy is an admirable forward step in this direction.