+75.  Is Belief Necessary in Debate?+—­If we are really arguing for a purpose, we should believe in the truth of the proposition which we support.  If the members of the school board were discussing the desirability of building a new schoolhouse, each would speak in accordance with his belief.  But if a class in school should debate such a question, having in mind not the determination of the question, but merely the selection and arrangement of the arguments for and against the proposition in the most effective way, each pupil might present the side in which he did not really believe.

EXERCISES

Consider each of the following propositions.  Do you believe the affirmative or the negative?

1.  This city needs a new high school building.

2.  All the pupils in the high school should be members of the athletic
   association.

3.  The school board should purchase an inclosed athletic field.

4.  The street railway should carry pupils to and from school for half
   fare.

5.  There should be a lunch room in this school.

6.  Fairy stories should not be told to children.

+Theme XLII.+—­Write a paragraph telling why you believe one of the propositions in the preceding exercise:

(What questions should you ask yourself while correcting your theme?)

+76.  Order of Presentation.+—­If you were preparing to debate one of the propositions in the preceding exercise, you would need to have in mind both the reasons for and against it.  Next you would consider the order in which these reasons should be discussed.  This will be determined by the circumstances of each debate, but generally the emphatic positions, that is, the first and the last, will be given to those arguments that seem to you to have the greatest weight, while those of less importance will occupy the central portion of your theme.

+77.  The Brief.+—­If, after making a note of the various advantages, examples, and other arguments that you wish to use in support of one of the propositions in Section 75, you arrange these in the order in which you think they can be most effectively presented, the outline so formed is called a brief.  Its preparation requires clear thinking, but when it is made, the task of writing out the argument is not difficult.  When the debate is to be spoken, not read, the brief, if kept in mind, will serve to suggest the arguments we wish to make in the order in which we wish to present them.  The brief differs from the ordinary outline in that it is composed of complete sentences.  Notice the following brief:—­

Manual Training should be substituted for school athletics.

Affirmative

1.  The exercise furnished by manual training is better adapted to the
    developing of the whole being both physical and mental; for—­
       a. It requires the mind to act in order to determine what to do
              and how to do it.
       b. It trains the muscles to carry out the ideal of the mind.