defined by agreement of both sides. In the case of the proposition, "The elective system should be adopted in our high schools," there would have to be an agreed definition of the term "elective system," as there are many different systems that go by that name.."Church property should be exempt from taxation" would require an agreed definition of the first two words. Before agreeing to a proposition, it is wise to submit it to a number of judicious and keen-minded people, including, if possible, one who knows thoroughly the special field to which the proposition belongs.

Preparation of Material.

156. The second matter of importance is the preparation of the material. This includes, as a primary step, finding out what to look for. It helps wonderfully towards this, to make a list of such arguments as you can think out, before you have done any systematic reading at all. Ask yourself the questions, "What ought to be true if my side of the proposition is true?” "What do I need to find verified by the facts, in order to prove my case?" "If I find the facts to be as I expect, how can I use them as arguments? That is, What inferences that will count can I draw from them?" In this preliminary thinking and planning you will be assisted by talking freely with others, especially with older people, about the proposition, and about the general subject to which it belongs. It will pay even to go so far as to make an orderly brief of these tentative arguments. You may discard this brief later, but it will help your thinking to make it. Besides you will thus

guard yourself against adhering too closely to the plans of other people which you will come upon in your reading.

You will read first for the purpose of answering the questions raised by your own thinking. While doing so, you will gradually get an acquaintance with the whole field of the discussion. By letting people know what the proposition is that you are working at, you will be referred to books and magazine articles on the subject. The librarian of any library will help you; teachers will help you, and so will your pastor, or any lawyer that you know. Do not hesitate to write for reference-lists on your proposition to any one who, you think, can help you, a college president, or professor, or editor, for example. But learn also to help yourself. Learn to use Poole's index, the card catalogue of the nearest library, and the lists that are given at the ends of articles in the encyclopædias and in many text-books and treatises.

Read as widely as time permits and read on both sides of the proposition. The debater must know the best arguments on both sides and how each argument is answered.

Note-taking should accompany the reading at every step. It is economical to use for notes, not a blankbook, but slips of paper about the size of a small postcard; and it is best to put but one note on a card, marking it as affirmative or negative. When the time comes to make the brief, the notes are easily rearranged by shifting the cards. It will save time to write accurately on each card the source of the note. You may need to refer to it later.

The Main Issues and the Trial Brief.

157. The few main points at issue will usually disclose themselves before the reading has been half completed. If they have not, the process of transforming a collection of notes into a brief, which is illustrated on pp. 404, 405 of this book, ought to disclose the three or four main issues. Grouping together the notes that belong together, you take each group by itself and ask, what does this group prove? The answer is likely to be one of the chief arguments. The few chief arguments thus obtained will prove to be the main issues; or they will lead to the discovery of these, through the disclosure of gaps in the logic that will have to be filled by further reading or by a complete reorganization of the notes. The main issues are never numerous. The sounder the thinking, the fewer are the main issues discovered.

Division of Labor.

158. As soon as the main issues are discovered, but not before, a division of labor may be made, and each member of the team may be assigned one of the issues to work up more thoroughly by reading and briefing. There is danger of beginning the division of labor too early; that is, before each debater has gained a general acquaintance with the field from which the proposition is taken. It is desirable, of course, that division of labor should be made as early as possible; and some teams are tempted, by this consideration, to beg, borrow, or steal the statement of the main issues from others, and apportion them for individual work immediately

after the proposition is announced, trusting that each will somehow get acquainted with the whole subject while reading for his own special part of it. The time that is seemingly gained by this is usually lost later when team practice begins. If each debater would begin his conversation, planning, general reading, and note-taking promptly, the need of haste to divide the field would not be so urgent.

Team Work.

159. Immediately after the proposition is announced, regular weekly meetings of the team should begin. At the first few of these meetings each should read his notes and call for criticism, inform the rest about his progress, and announce his plan of work for the next week. The members should help one another over difficulties, suggest reading matter and references to one another, and above all bring forward objections that have been discovered to any argument proposed. If there is a lazy member of the team, he should be reformed or compelled to resign before the work has gone far. The substitute (and every team should have a substitute or two) should be treated as a member of the team and should work as if it were certain that he would have to be called into service in the final debate. When each member has made a brief, showing the main issues as he conceives them to be, these individual briefs at an appointed time should be brought in, compared, criticised, and welded into a single team brief. From this time forward, the composite brief having been made, and the issues assigned

severally to the members, individual practice may begin at the meetings.

Individual Practice.

160. This means that each member should come t to the meeting with a speech on his part of the brief, to be read from manuscript and not to be memorized until it has undergone severe criticism from the other members, and from some teacher, some old debater of the school, or some mature guest who has been invited to the meeting with instructions to interrupt the reading, to doubt, to question, and, if he will, to rise and reply to any argument that seems inconclusive. After this process, the speech should be revised and finally learned.

The Second Team.

161. Meanwhile another team of the school has been doing, independently, precisely what the first team has been doing, only on the opposite side of the proposition. Up to the time of completing individual practice it is best for the teams to see nothing of one another. But when each member of both teams has become master of a set speech, the teams should hold frequent meetings together for practice debates.

Practice Debates.

162. The first practice debate should be preceded by an exchange of briefs between the two teams. The object of this is to enable each debater to introduce new matter suggested by a reading of the opponent's brief. The chief purpose of these practice debates is training