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 facts in the course of writing an argument.  President Lowell of Harvard told a body of students whom he was consulting that it did not make much difference what they wanted, but that their views when set forth for the purpose of helping the authorities of the college were of great value.  The views of your class on examinations for entrance would be based on knowledge which a member of the faculty cannot have at first-hand.  What is the estimate of the relative difficulty of getting into various colleges, and on what figures from schools is the estimate based?  For how many boys are languages easier or harder than history or mathematics or science?  Does admission by certificate provide sufficient safeguard for the standards of the college?  Does a rigid prescription of subjects for examination distort the course for the high school?  How many boys, who can be named, had their education injured by such prescription?  Should the standard for entrance or for graduation be raised, or lowered, at your college?  Should honor students be excused from final examinations?  Should they have special privileges?  Should freshmen be required to be within college bounds at a fixed hour every night?  Should class rushes be abolished?  Here are only a few suggestions of subjects which can be adapted to the needs and the knowledge of special classes.  They are of no value, however, unless the students are driven to gather facts, and to reason from these facts, not from general impressions.  School catalogues, college catalogues, informal censuses, reports of presidents and of committees, and other printed or oral sources will help in the gathering of facts.