people have
any exact command of facts on subjects about which they talk freely and
with authority; and a young man who has had this truth borne in on him
by personal examination will come to writing an argument with more
modesty and scrupulousness.

Then a class can be guided away from the large subjects where of
necessity their knowledge of facts is second-hand, and in which their
arguments, being of necessity short, can touch only the surface of the
subject. Here, I think, is where much of the ineffectiveness of courses
in argument is to be found. "Judges should be elected by direct vote of
the people," "The right of suffrage should be limited by an educational
test," "Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be required
to take out a federal license," are samples of propositions recommended
as subjects for arguments of two thousand words or less. No
undergraduate has the practical knowledge of affairs to judge the value
of facts adduced in support of such propositions, and except for the
members of debating teams, who spend time on their contests comparable
to that given by athletes to their sports, no undergraduate can make
himself acquainted with the vast fields of economics and governmental
theory covered by such subjects. To write an argument of twelve hundred
words on such a subject will weaken rather than strengthen the respect
for facts.

What sort of subjects, then, can be used? This is, I confess, a question
not altogether easy to answer; but I have had a try at an answer in the
list of Subjects which is given in Chapter I, which can be adapted to
special conditions of time or place. In general a question which a
student would discuss of his own accord and with some warmth is the best
subject for him. There are many such subjects in athletics: at this date
the rules of football seem not yet settled beyond amendment, and the
material for hunting facts in the records of past games is large; Dean
Briggs of Harvard is making an appeal to players to raise the level of
manners and of ethics in baseball; do all your students agree with him?
Should the universities be allowed to use men in their graduate schools
as members of their teams? And what are the facts about the playing of
such men in the universities in which your students would be interested?

Then there are various educational questions, on which the views of
students have real value, especially if they are based on some
examination of fact