A FLYER IN FORENSICS

On the gray spires of Oxford the eyes of our educators have for some time been fixed. Future historians of Harvard University will see these years as introductory, in our educational system, of much that bears an English stamp. But they may well be puzzled at our discrimination, at our choice of what to borrow, and what merely to admire. And among those things peculiar to Oxford which command our flattery at something below its most sincere form, there is nothing more remarkable than their debating.

Observation and admiration have not been lacking. Symphony Hall has welcomed Oxford and Cambridge debaters in regular annual sequence. Audiences have listened in amused complaisance, marveling at the wit and sparkle of the English speakers, and then staunchly voted for the solid legal points of our opposition. It is not patriotism, it is rather a deep-seated distrust of what is clever.

The problem extends beyond the somewhat academic audiences who read names of Bach and Mozart engraved upon the pillars of Symphony Hall as they listen to the concise and logical eloquence of our forensic champions. There have been Debating Unions and Debating Councils, there have been amalgamations and divisions, there has been everything possible except debating. The latest move has been the incorporation of the Debating Union with the Harvard Union, accomplished last spring. Few undergraduate moves of recent years have been more justly applauded, but even in this house of still born dreams and institutions, few have proved more barren of results.

The situation is hardly one calculated to inspire enthusiasm. Harvard debating remains, at its best, a training-school for Langdell Hall. And yet there seems to be no excellent reason why this should be the case. One flurry of last fall, when popular interest was seized literally by the horns, was enough to prove that we are not congenitally unforensic, that we are capable of that collective adventuring along paths somewhat dubiously intellectual but undoubtedly attractive which lies at the heart of the Cambridge or of the Oxford Union. And it is hardly to be said that we lack that intellectual immaturity which is a prerequsite for debating skill.

If there are no inherent obstacles, if we are neither by nature solitary-minded nor by education completely convinced of the ultimate verities, then there is hope. There is no sacrifice of traditional method needed. We need not try our land at cleverness. But there is something to be said for experiment, even if trial be followed by error, and there is always the chance. Philosophy has now become as popular as word-puzzles, and philosophy used to be considered academic.

A university has no such instrument as a tariff, with which to foster young domestic industries, but it is perhaps as well that it has not. For debating is not to be revived by the exclusion of foreign samples. The solution lies rather in a change of attitude, and if there be those to suggest the Gallic barbarian listening before the tribune of the Roman senators, we need not in our pride be overly distressed.