Logical Humor

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The Transcript's editorial reprinted in the CRIMSON of a day or two age presented an interesting speculation regarding the use of humor and of humorous questions in debating. Competitive speaking between colleges happens at present to find itself in a state of metamorphosis of which some aspects are necessarily unlovely and extreme; and it can profit definitely by examining the frank criticism of those who sit in debating audiences or who serve as its official judges.

The art of debate is moving now from very rigid, severe standards of presentation toward a less formal delivery. The Harvard-Yale contest, whence the discussion proceeds, was an experiment pointed in that direction; and like any early experiment in the arts, it tended to bewilder, and its effect was equivocal. The judges, with their eyes open for logical consistency, voted one way, and the audience, delighted by a steady flow of capable wit, voted the other. The confusion arose, I believe, from the simple fact of distribution. What the new school of debating wishes to do is not to place humor and logic across the stage from each other, as occurred Saturday night, but to combine the two. When this has been accomplished successfully, there will be no need for the special instructions to judges which the Transcript appears to consider necessary.

More than that: the final value of the new tendency cannot be estimated from debates of this sort so accurately as from argument over the usual type of question. If debate on propositions of a serious nature derives new yigor from these experiments with humor, and questions of importance can come to be presented in a more keen and pleasing manner, the art will have been greatly refined. Many steps forward have been taken within the last few years by recognizing the important role of wit in debating. Therein lies the true worth of this less solemn tendency. Dwight W. Chapman,   President, Harvard Debating Council.