in the following sentence from an article in a magazine on the question
of examinations for entrance to college:

As for interest and variety, what could destroy and taboo both more
effectually than the rigid and rigorous demands of a formal set of
examinations prepared, as a rule, by pedantic specialists who know
practically nothing of the fundamental problems and needs of the high
school.

Begging the question is often committed in the course of defining terms,
as in the following passage from Cardinal Newman's "Idea of a
University":

It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect
so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all
for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here
[Ireland] and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by
writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument
and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and my
reason For saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form
of a syllogism:--A University, I should lay down, by its very name
professes to teach universal knowledge; Theology is surely a branch
of knowledge; how then is it possible for it to profess all branches
of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching
one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of
them? I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to
exception.[51]

The obvious answer is that "university" is a vague term and that there
may be many kinds of universities, as indeed there are in this country;
moreover, the importance of theology is an arguable matter even among
church members.

A well-recognized, but often subtle, form of begging the question is
what is known as "arguing in a circle." Usually the fallacy is so
wrapped up in verbiage that it is hard to pick out. Here is a clear and
well-put detection of a case of it:

There is an argument in favor of child labor so un-American and so
inhuman that I am almost ashamed to quote it, and yet it has been used,
and I fear it is secretly in the minds of some who would not openly
stand for it. A manufacturer standing near the furnace of a glasshouse
and pointing to a procession of young Slav boys who were carrying the
glass on trays, remarked, "Look at their faces, and you will see that it
is idle to take them from the glasshouse in order to give them an
education: