HOUSE DEBATE

The inauguration of inter-House debating last night by the Dunster and Winthrop House teams marks both a culmination and a beginning: a culmination of three years of effort on the part of the CRIMSON and the University Debating Council, and the beginning of an opportunity for a large number of men to take part in public speaking.

The need for practice in public speaking has long been recognized. Heretofore it has been limited to members of the Debating Council, and to students in public speaking classes that often emphasize declamation rather than conversational ease of address. Through the organization of House debating, practice in public speaking is combined with a discussion of problems of undergraduate interest. The first inter-House debate was conducted informally, and it is significant that no decision was given. Thus the sophistries of formal debate were avoided, and after presentation of opposing arguments an agreement was reached.

Formal debating often involves the stiff presentation of set speeches that fail to establish a clash of issues. Technicalities of definition are pushed for all they are worth, and no rational basis for an understanding is reached. The decision is awarded on the basis of effective presentation, and the scramble for the decision results in the establishment of intrinsic rights and intrinsic wrongs on a question that is necessarily relative. Informal debating and parliamentary discussion in House debating clubs; with no decision at stake, lay the foundation for argument that seeks not merely to win but to establish truth.