Young people should avoid taking sides, at least at the beginning of their study of a problem, and probably discussion should take the place of debating. At any rate, the single point, rather than the whole question, might form the unit of debate. They should be taught to argue on both sides of a question, according to belief, just as frank persons do in conversation, to recognize the strength of opposing arguments, and to confess their own weak points. Then they would be making truth their aim, rather than victory. Such discussions are much more typical of life than ordinary debates; and if the latter seem necessary as a preparation for some professions—which is deplorable, if true—one should wait to acquire such ability until professional training begins.
7. Avoidance of too positive forms of speech.
Aside from debates, people are often tempted to commit themselves too positively in regard to facts by too positive forms of speech. We so often hear "I know" in place of "I suspect" or "I surmise"; and the speaker, having committed himself almost before he knows it, repeats the assertion to make himself more sure, meanwhile wondering how sure he is.
Benjamin Franklin speaks in his autobiography of having acquired the habit of expressing himself in terms of modest diffidence, "never using," he says, "when I advance anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, 'I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so-or-so'; 'It appears to me,' or 'I should not think it so-or-so, for such-and-such reasons'; or 'I imagine it to be so'; or 'It is so, if I am not mistaken.' This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting. And, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or be informed, to please or persuade, I wish well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat most of those purposes for which speech was given to us." [Footnote:Autobiography, p. 21, of edition of Cassell & Co.]
Franklin is here considering intemperate forms of speech from the point of view of others. But they have a corresponding bad effect on the speaker, making him more dogmatic the more he indulges in them, until he loses the power to be tolerant of other persons.
Discussion and conversation should be conscientiously utilized by the student for the practice of intellectual honesty, of sincerity with himself, for such sincerity lies at the very foundation of true scholarship.
CHAPTER X
PROVISION FOR INDIVIDUALITY, AS AN EIGHTH FACTOR IN STUDY
The change in appreciation of the self.
There was a time when people seemed to take pride in self- depreciation. Believing in total depravity, they were suspicious of all natural tendencies, and the crushing out of strong desires seemed no evil. Obedience to Another's will was the one supreme virtue, and the killing of human nature, the annihilation of self, was the condition of its attainment. [Footnote: See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter III.]