Even where there is not time for systematic practice in debating, much may be done by extemporaneous five-minute speeches. There is unquestionably an active movement among the best teachers of English for more stress on oral composition; they recognize that the power to stand quietly and at one's ease on one's feet and explain one's views clearly and cogently will help any man in his life work.
In some cases there may be local or academic subjects under discussion at the time the class is working on argument on which they can prepare themselves to speak. It may be possible to interest graduates of the school and college, so that they will give help in getting material, and perhaps in judging and criticizing. Occasionally, perhaps, a man who has the actual settlement of a local question or a share in the settlement may be willing to hear the discussion. Any aid of this sort that will bring the debate within the bounds of reality will add zest to it.
For the use of this book when a comparatively short time, perhaps six weeks, is at the disposal of the instructor, my advice, based on the practice worked out with my colleagues in the freshman course at Harvard, would be to begin with Chapter I, and at the same time ask the class to hand in subjects for approval. This should be done a fortnight ahead of the main work, in order to allow changes of subject, after consultation if necessary. In connection with Chapter II would come exercises in making briefs of one or more of the arguments in the back of the book or of others provided for the purpose. Then would come the preliminary work on the brief, the introduction to the brief. This it is profitable to treat as a separate piece of work, with a grade of its own. At this stage would be the place for the exercises in the use of reference books, which will lead naturally to looking up the material for the brief. If possible a conference should be given on the introduction to the brief. Then comes the next main step in the work, the brief. The work for this would naturally be accompanied by study of Chapter III, and by such exercises in the correction of bad briefing and in correction of fallacies as the instructor finds time for. There should be another conference on the brief, and it should be rewritten if necessary. Instructors who have been through the subject will know from sad experience that one rewriting and one conference may be only starters. Then comes the argument itself: this should be the climax, and not merely a perfunctory filling out of the brief. If it be at all possible, the argument should be rewritten after a conference, and the conference can hardly be too long. If the argument is fifteen hundred or two thousand words long, a half an hour will be found a short time to go over the whole with any thoroughness. No instructor in English needs to have it pointed out that conferences are his most efficient means of education.
Footnotes
1 [ See Lincoln's speech at Galesburg and at Quincy, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.]
2 [ O. W. Holmes, Jr., The Common Law, Boston, 1881, p. 35.]