 |
THE MAKING OF ARGUMENTS
J.H. GARDINER
FORMERLY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1912
TO MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES ON THE STAFF OF ENGLISH A
PREFACE
The object of this book is to lay out a course in the writing of arguments which shall be simple enough for classes which give only a part of the year to the work, and yet comprehensive enough for special classes in the subject. It is especially aimed at the interests and needs of the student body as a whole, however, rather than at those of students who are doing advanced work in argumentation. Though few men have either the capacity or the need to become highly trained specialists in the making of arguments, all men need some knowledge of the art. Experience at Harvard has shown that pretty much the entire freshman class will work with enthusiasm on a single argument; and they get from this work a training in exact thought and a discipline that they get from no other kind of writing.
Accordingly I have laid out this book in order to start students as soon as possible on the same kind of arguments that they are likely to make in practical life. I have striven throughout to keep in mind the interests and needs of these average individuals, who in the aggregate will tread such a variety of paths in their passage through the world. Not many of them will get to Congress, there to make great orations on the settlement of the tariff, and the large majority of them will not go into the law; and even of the lawyers many will have little concern with the elaborate piecing together of circumstantial evidence into the basis for a verdict. But all of them will sooner or later need the power of coming to close quarters with more or less complicated questions, in which they must bring over to their views men of varying prepossessions and practical interests; and all of them all their lives will need the power of seeing through to the heart of such questions, and of grasping what is essential, though it be separated by a hair's breadth from the inessential that must be cast to one side. It is for this training of the powers of thought that a course in the making of arguments is profitable, even when pursued for so short a time as can be given to it in most schools and colleges.
In laying out the book I have had these three purposes in mind: first, that the student shall without waste of time be set to exploring his subject and running down the exact issues on which his question will tarn; second, that as he collects his material he shall be led on to consider what part of it is good evidence for his purpose, and how to test his reasoning from the facts; third, that with his material gathered and culled and his plan settled he shall turn his attention to presenting it in the most effective way possible for the particular occasion.
Throughout I have tried to lay stress on the making of arguments, not as an end in themselves, and to fit certain more or loss arbitrary formulas, but as the practical kind of appeal that every young man is already making to his fellows on matters that interest him, and that he will make more and more in earnest as he gets out into the world. The tendency of some of the books to treat argumentation, especially in the form of debating, as a new variety of sport, with rules as elaborate and technical as those of football, turns away from the subject a good many young men to whom the training in itself would be highly valuable. The future of the subject will be closely dependent on the success of teachers in keeping it flexible and in intimate touch with real affairs. I have made some suggestions looking towards this end in Appendix II.
My obligations to earlier workers in the field will be obvious to all who know the subject. In especial, I, like all other writers on the subject, have built on foundations laid by Professor George Pierce Baker, of Harvard University.
For permission to use the articles from The Outlook I am indebted to the courtesy of the editors of that journal; for the article on "The Transmission of Yellow Fever by Mosquitoes," to the kindness of General Sternberg, and of the editor of The Popular Science Monthly.
J.H. GARDINER
THE MAKING OF ARGUMENTS
CHAPTER I
WHAT WE ARGUE ABOUT, AND WHY
1. What Argument is. When we argue we write or speak with an active purpose of making other people take our view of a case; that is the only essential difference between argument and other modes of writing. Between exposition and argument there is no certain line. In Professor Lamont's excellent little book, "Specimens of Exposition," there are two examples which might be used in this book as examples of argument; in one of them, Huxley's essay on "The Physical Basis of Life," Huxley himself toward the end uses the words, "as I have endeavored to prove to you"; and Matthew Arnold's essay on "Wordsworth" is an elaborate effort to prove that Wordsworth is the greatest English poet after Shakespeare and Milton. Or, to take quite different examples, in any question of law where judges of the court disagree, as in the Income Tax Case, or in the Insular cases which decided the status of Porto Rico and the Philippines, both the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions of the judges are argumentative in form; though the majority opinion, at any rate, is in theory an exposition of the law. The real difference between argument and exposition lies in the difference of attitude toward the subject in hand: when we are explaining we tacitly assume that there is only one view to be taken of the subject; when we argue we recognize that other people look on it differently. And the differences in form are only those which are necessary to throw the critical points of an argument into high relief and to warm the feelings of the readers.
2. Conviction and Persuasion. This active purpose of making other people take your view of the case in hand, then, is the distinguishing essence of argument. To accomplish this purpose you have two tools or weapons, or perhaps one should say two sides to the same weapon, conviction and persuasion. In an argument you aim in the first place to make clear to your audience that your view of the case is the truer or sounder, or your proposal the more expedient; and in most arguments you aim also so to touch the practical or moral feelings of your readers as to make them more or less warm partisans of your view. If you are trying to make some one see that the shape of the hills in New England is due to glacial action, you never think of his feelings; here any attempt at persuading him, as distinguished from convincing him, would be an impertinence. On the other hand, it would be a waste of breath to convince a man that the rascals ought to be turned out, if he will not on election day take the trouble to go out and vote; unless you have effectively stirred his feelings as well as convinced his reason you have gained nothing. In the latter case your argument would be almost wholly persuasive, in the former almost wholly a matter of convincing.
These two sides of argument correspond to two great faculties of the human mind, thought and feeling, and to the two ways in which, under the guidance of thought and feeling, mankind reacts to experience. As we pass through life our actions and our interest in the people and things we meet are fixed in the first place by the spontaneous movements of feeling, and in the second place, and constantly more so as we grow older, by our reasoning powers. Even the most intentionally dry of philosophers has his prejudices, perhaps against competitive sports or against efficiency as a chief test of good citizenship; and after childhood the most wayward of artists has some general principles to guide him along his primrose path. The actions of all men are the resultant of these two forces of feeling and reason. Since in most cases where we are arguing we have an eye to influencing action, we must keep both the forces in mind as possible means to our end.
3. Argument neither Contentiousness nor Dispute. Argument is not contentiousness, nor is it the good-natured and sociable disputation in which we occupy a good deal of time with our friends. The difference is that in neither contentiousness nor in kindly dispute do we expect, or intend, to get anywhere. There are many political speeches whose only object is to make things uncomfortable for the other side, and some speeches in college or school debates intended merely to trip up the other side; and neither type helps to clear up the subjects it deals with. On the other hand, we spend many a pleasant evening arguing whether science is more important in education than literature, or whether it is better to spend the summer at the seashore or in the mountains, or similar subjects, where we know that everybody will stand at the end just where he stood at the beginning. Here our real purpose is not to change any one's views so much as it is to exchange thoughts and likings with some one we know and care for. The purpose of argument, as we shall understand the word here, is to convince or persuade some one.
4. Arguments and the Audience. In argument, therefore, far more than in other kinds of writing, one must keep the audience definitely in mind. "Persuade" and "convince" for our purposes are active verbs, and in most cases their objects have an important effect on their significance. An argument on a given subject that will have a cogent force with one set of people, will not touch, and may even repel, another. To take a simple example: an argument in defense of the present game of football would change considerably in proportions and in tone according as it was addressed to undergraduates, to a faculty, or to a ministers' conference. Huxley's argument on evolution (p. 233), which was delivered to a popular audience, has more illustrations and is less compressed in reasoning than if it had been delivered to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Not only theoretically, but in practice, arguments must vary in both form and substance with the audiences to which they are addressed. An argument shot into the void is not likely to bring down much game.
5. Profitable Subjects for Arguments. To get the best results from practice in writing arguments, you must choose your subjects with care and sagacity. Some classes of subjects are of small value. Questions which rest on differences of taste or temperament from their very nature can never be brought to a decision. The question whether one game is better than another—football better than baseball, for example—is not arguable, for in the end one side settles down to saying, "But I like baseball best," and you stick there. Closely akin is such a question as, Was Alexander Pope a poet; for in the word "poet" one includes many purely emotional factors which touch one person and not another. Matthew Arnold made a brave attempt to prove that Wordsworth stood third in excellence in the long line of English poets, and his essay is a notable piece of argument; but the very statement of his thesis, that Wordsworth "left a body of poetical work superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, to that which any of the others has left," shows the vanity of the attempt. To take a single word—"interest"—from his proposition: what is the use of arguing with me, if Wordsworth happened to bore me, as he does not, that I ought to find him interesting. All I could do would be humbly to admit my deficiency, and go as cheerfully as might be to Burns or Coleridge or Byron. Almost all questions of criticism labor under this difficulty, that in the end they are questions of taste. You or I were so made in the beginning that the so-called romantic school or the so-called classical school seems to us to have reached the pinnacle of art; and all the argument in the world cannot make us over again in this respect. Every question which in the end involves questions of aesthetic taste is as futile to argue as questions of the palate.
Other questions are impracticable because of vagueness. Such questions as, Should a practical man read poetry, Are lawyers a useful class in the community, Are the American people deteriorating, furnish excellent material for lively and witty talk, but no one expects them to lead to any conclusion, and they are therefore valueless as a basis for the rigorous and muscular training which an argument ought to give. There are many questions of this sort which serve admirably for the friendly dispute which makes up so much of our daily life with our friends, but which dissolve when we try to pin them down.
Some questions which cannot be profitably argued when phrased in general terms become more practicable when they are applied to a definite class or to a single person. Such questions as, Is it better to go to a small college or a large one, Is it better to live in the country or in the city, Is it wise to go into farming, all lead nowhere if they are argued in this general form. But if they are applied to a single person, they change character: in this specific form they not only are arguable, but they constantly are argued out with direct and practical results, and even for a small and strictly defined class of persons they may provide good material for a formal argument. For example, the question, "Is it better for a boy of good intellectual ability and capacity for making friends, who lives in a small country town, to go to a small college or a large," provides moderately good material for an argument on either side; though even here the limiting phrases are none too definite. In a debate on such a subject it would be easy for the two sides to pass each other by without ever coming to a direct issue, because of differing understanding of the terms. On the whole it seems wiser not to take risks with such questions, but to choose from those which will unquestionably give you the training for which you are seeking.
Roughly speaking, subjects for an argument which are sure to be profitable may be divided into three classes: (1) those for which the material is drawn from personal experience; (2) those for which the material is provided by reading; and (3) those which combine the first two. Of these there can be no question that the last are the most profitable. Of the first class we may take for an example such a question as, Should interscholastic athletics be maintained in—— school? Here is a question on which some parents and teachers at any rate will disagree with most boys, and a question which must be settled one way or the other. The material for the discussion must come from the personal knowledge of those who make the arguments, reenforced by what information and opinion they can collect from teachers and townspeople. In Chapter II we shall come to a consideration of possible sources for material for these and other arguments. There is much to be said for the practice gained by hunting up pertinent material for arguments of this sort; but they tend to run over into irreconcilable differences of opinion, in which an argument is of no practical value.
The second class of subjects, those for which the material is drawn wholly from reading, is the most common in intercollegiate and interscholastic debates. Should the United States army canteen be restored, Should the Chinese be excluded from the Philippines, Should the United States establish a parcels post, are all subjects with which the ordinary student in high school or college can have little personal acquaintance. The sources for arguments on such subjects are to be found in books, magazines, and official reports. The good you will get from arguments on such subjects lies largely in finding out how to look up material. The difficulty with them lies in their size and their complexity. When it is remembered that a column of an ordinary newspaper has somewhere about fifteen hundred words, and that an editorial article such as on page 268, which is thirty-eight hundred words long, is in these days of hurry apt to be repellent, because of its length, and on the other hand that a theme of fifteen hundred words seems to the ordinary undergraduate a weighty undertaking, the nature of this difficulty becomes clear. To put it another way, speeches on public subjects of great importance are apt to be at least an hour long, and not infrequently more, and in an hour one easily speaks six or seven thousand words, so that fifteen hundred words would not fill a fifteen-minute speech. This difficulty is met in debates by the longer time allowed, for each side ordinarily has an hour; but even then there can be no pretense of a thorough treatment. The ordinary written argument of a student in school or college can therefore do very little with large public questions. The danger is that a short argument on a large question may breed in one an easy content with a superficial and parrotlike discussion of the subject. Discussions of large and abstract principles are necessary, but they are best left to the time of life when one has a comprehensive and intimate knowledge of the whole mass of facts concerned.
By far the best kind of subject, as has been said, is that which will combine some personal acquaintance with the facts and the possibility of some research for material. Many such subjects may be found in the larger educational questions when applied to your own school or college. Should the elective system be maintained at Harvard College, Should the University of Illinois require Latin for the A.B. degree, Should fraternities be abolished in——High School, Should manual training be introduced in——High School, are all questions of this sort. A short list of similar questions is printed at the end of this section, which it is hoped will prove suggestive. For discussing these questions you will find considerable printed material in educational and other magazines, in reports of presidents of colleges and school committees, and other such places, which will give you practice in hunting up facts and opinions and in weighing their value. At the same time training of your judgment will follow when you apply the theories and opinions you find in these sources to local conditions. Moreover, such questions will give you practice in getting material in the raw, as it were, by making up tables of statistics from catalogues, by getting facts by personal interview, and in other ways, which will be considered in Chapter II. Finally, such subjects are much more likely to be of a size that you can bring to a head in the space and the time allowed to the average student, and they may have some immediate and practical effect in determining a question in which your own school or college has an interest. Arguments on such subjects are therefore less likely to be "academic" discussions, in the sense of having no bearing on any real conditions. When every college and school has plenty of such subjects continually under debate, there seems to be no reason for going farther and faring worse.
The main thing is to get a subject which will carry you back to facts, and one in which you will be able to test your own reasoning.
6. Suggestions of Subjects for Practice. Many of the subjects in the list below will need some adaptation to fit them to local conditions; and these will undoubtedly suggest many others of a similar nature. Other subjects of immediate and local interest may be drawn from the current newspapers; and the larger, perennial ones like prohibition, woman suffrage, immigration laws, are always at the disposal of those who have the time and the courage for the amount of reading they involve. The distinction between a subject and the proposition to be argued will be made in Chapter II.
SUGGESTIONS FOR SUBJECTS OF ARGUMENTS
TO BE ADAPTED TO LOCAL AND PRESENT CONDITIONS
1. Admission to this college should be by examination only.
2. The entrance requirements of this college set a good standard for a public high-school course.
3. Admission to this college should be by certificate from the candidate's school, such as is now accepted at——College.
4. The standards for admission to this college or to the State University should be raised.
5. The standard for graduating from this college should be raised.
6. Attendance at chapel exercises should be made voluntary.
7. The numbers of students in this college should be limited by raising the standard for admission.
8. A reading knowledge of French or of German, to be tested by an oral examination, should be substituted for the present requirements for entrance in those languages.
9. No list of books should be prescribed for the entrance examination in English.
10. Freshmen should be required to be within bounds by eleven o'clock at night.
11. Freshmen should not be elected to college societies.
12. Students who have attained distinction in their studies should be treated as graduate students are, in respect to attendance and leave of absence.
13. Arrangements should be made by which the work done on college papers should count toward the degree.
14. The honor system in examinations should be introduced into this college.
15. The course of study in this college should be made wholly elective.
16. Coeducation should be maintained in this college.
17. Secret societies should be prohibited in——High School.
18. The business course in——High School should be given up.
19. Compulsory military drill should be introduced into——School (or, into this college).
20. Greek should be given up in——School.
21. All students in——School, whether in the business course or not, should be required to study Latin.
22. Athletics have had a detrimental effect on the studies of those who have taken part in them.
23.——School should engage in athletic contests with two other schools only.
24. The school committee in——should be reduced to five members.
25. The school committee in——is at present too large for efficient direction of the schools.
26. The principal of the high school in——should report directly to the school committee and not to the superintendent of schools.
27. This city should assign a sum equal to——mills of the whole tax rate to the support of the public schools.
28. The high school of this city should have a single session each day, instead of two.
29. This city should substitute a commission government on the general model of that in Des Moines, Iowa, for the present system.
30. The commission form of government has proved its superiority to government by a mayor and two legislative boards.
31. This city should elect its municipal officers by preferential voting.
32. This city should establish playgrounds in the crowded parts of the city, notably in Wards——and——.
33. Boys should be allowed to play ball in unfrequented streets.
34. This city should set apart——mills on the tax rate each year for building permanent roads.
35. The laws and regulations governing the inspection and the sale of milk should be made more stringent.
36. This city should buy and run the waterworks.
37. This city should build future extensions of the street railway system and lease them to the highest bidder.
38. This city should buy and operate the street railway system.
38. The street railway company in this city should be required to pave and care for all the streets through which it runs.
40. A committee of business men should be appointed by the mayor to conduct negotiations for bringing new industries to the city.
41. This city should establish municipal gymnasiums.
42. This city would be benefited by the consolidation of the two street railway systems.
43. This state should adopt a ballot law similar to that of Massachusetts.
44. This state should adopt the "short ballot."
45. This state should tax forest lands according to the product rather than the assessed value of the land.
46. The present rules of football are satisfactory.
47. This college should make "soccer" football one of its major sports.
48. Unnecessary talking by the players should be forbidden in games of baseball.
49. Coaching from the side lines should be forbidden in baseball.
50. "Summer baseball" should be regarded as a breach of amateur standing.
51. An intercollegiate committee of graduates should be formed with power to absolve college athletes from technical and minor breaches of the amateur rules.
52. This college should make an effort to return to amateur coaching by proposing agreements to that effect with its principal rivals.
53. This university should not allow students with degrees from other institutions to play on its athletic teams.
54. The managers of the principal athletic teams in this college should be elected by the students at large.
55. The expenses of athletic teams at this college should be considerably reduced.
7. The Two Kinds of Arguments. With the subject you are going to argue on chosen, it will be wise to come to closer quarters with the process of arguing. A large part of the good results you will get from practice in writing arguments will be the strengthening of your powers of exact and keen thought; I shall therefore in the following sections try to go somewhat below the surface of the process, and see just what any given kind of argument aims to do, and how it accomplishes its aim by its appeal to special faculties and interests of the mind. I shall also consider briefly the larger bearings of a few of the commoner and more important types of argument, as the ordinary citizen meets them in daily life.
We may divide arguments roughly into two classes, according as the proposition they maintain takes the form, "This is true," or the form, "This ought to be done." The former we will call, for the sake of brevity, arguments of fact, the latter arguments of policy. Of the two classes the former is addressed principally to the reason, the faculty by which we arrange the facts of the universe (whether small or great) as they come to us, and so make them intelligible. You believe that the man who brought back your dog for a reward stole the dog, because that view fits best with the facts you know about him and the disappearance of the dog; we accept the theory of evolution because, as Huxley points out at the beginning of his essay (see pp. 233, 235), it provides a place for all the facts that have been collected about the world of plants and animals and makes of them all a consistent and harmonious system. In Chapter III we shall come to a further consideration of the workings of this faculty so far as it affects the making of arguments.
Arguments of policy, on the other hand, which argue what ought to be done, make their appeal in the main to the moral, practical, Or aesthetic interests of the audience. These interests have their ultimate roots in the deep-seated mass of inherited temperamental motives and forces which may be summed up here in the conveniently vague term "feeling." These motives and forces, it will be noticed, lie outside the field of reason, and are in the main recalcitrant to it. When you argue that it is "right" that rich men should endow the schools and colleges of this country, you would find it impossible to explain in detail just what you mean by "right"; your belief rises from feelings, partly inherited, partly drawn in with the air of the country, which make you positive of your assertion even when you can least give reasons for it. So our practical interests turn in the end on what we want and do not want, and are therefore molded by our temperament and tastes, which are obviously matters of feeling. Our aesthetic interests, which include our preferences in all the fields of art and literature and things beautiful or ugly in daily life, even more obviously go back to feeling. Now in practical life our will to do anything is latent until some part of this great body of feeling is stirred; therefore arguments of policy, which aim to show that something ought to be done, cannot neglect feeling. You may convince me never so thoroughly that I ought to vote the Republican or the Democratic ticket, yet I shall sit still on election day if you do not touch my feelings of moral right or practical expediency. The moving cause of action is feeling, though the feeling is often modified, or even transformed, by reasoning. We shall come back to the nature of feeling in Chapter V, when we get to the subject of persuasion.
An important practical difference between arguments of fact and arguments of policy lies in the different form and degree of certitude to which they lead. At the end of arguments of fact it is possible to say, if enough evidence can be had, "This is undeniably true." In these arguments we can use the word "proof" in its strict sense. In arguments of policy on the other hand, where the question is worth arguing, we know in many cases that in the end there will be men who are as wise and as upright as ourselves who will continue to disagree. In such cases it is obvious that we can use the word "proof" only loosely; and we speak of right or of expediency rather than of truth. This distinction is worth bearing in mind, for it leads to soberness and a seemly modesty in controversy. It is only in barber-shop politics and sophomore debating clubs that a decision of a question of policy takes its place among the eternal verities.
With these distinctions made, let us now consider a few of the chief varieties of these two classes of arguments, dealing only with those which every one of us comes to know in the practical affairs of life. It will be obvious that the divisions between these are not fixed, and that they are far from exhausting the full number of varieties.
8. Arguments of Fact. Among the commonest and most important varieties of arguments of fact are those made before juries in courts of law. It is a fundamental principle of the common law under which we live that questions of fact shall be decided by twelve men chosen by lot from the community, and that questions of the law that shall be applied to these facts shall be decided by the judges. Accordingly in criminal trials the facts concerning the crime and the actions and whereabouts of the accused are subjects of argument by the counsel. If the prisoner is attempting to establish an alibi, and the evidence is meager or conflicting, his counsel and the prosecuting officer must each make arguments before the jury on the real meaning of the evidence. In civil cases likewise, all disputed questions of fact go ordinarily to a jury, and are the subject of arguments by the opposing lawyers. Did the defendant guarantee the goods he sold the plaintiff? Was undue influence exerted on the testator? Did the accident happen through the negligence of the railroad officials? In such cases and the countless others that congest the lists of the lower courts arguments of fact must be made.
Other common arguments of fact are those in historical questions, whether in recent or in ancient history. Macaulay's admirable skeleton argument (p. 155) that Philip Francis wrote the Junius Letters, which so grievously incensed the English government about the time of the American Revolution, is an example of an argument of this sort; the part of Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address which deals with the views of the founders of the nation on the subject of the control of slavery in the territories is another. Another question concerning facts is that which a few years ago stirred classical archaeologists, whether the Greek theater had a raised stage or not. In all such cases the question is as to facts which at one time, at any rate, could have been settled absolutely. The reason why an argument about them becomes necessary is that the evidence which could finally settle the questions has disappeared with the persons who possessed it, or has been dissipated by time. Students of history and literature have to deal with many such questions of fact.
A somewhat different kind of question of fact, and one often extremely difficult to settle, is that which concerns not a single, uncomplicated fact, but a broad condition of affairs. Examples of such questions are whether woman suffrage has improved political conditions in Colorado and other states, whether the introduction of manual training in a certain high school has improved the intelligence and serviceableness of its graduates, whether political corruption is decreasing in American cities. The difficulty that faces an argument in such cases as these is not the loss of the evidence, but rather that it consists of a multitude of little facts, and that the selection of these details is singularly subject to bias and partisan feeling. These questions of a broad state of affairs are like questions of policy in that in the end their settlement depends thus largely on temperamental and practical prepossessions.
Still another and very important variety of arguments of fact, which are often conveniently described as arguments of theory, includes large scientific questions, such, for example, as the origin of our present species of plants and animals, or the ultimate constitution of matter, or the cause of yellow fever. In such arguments we start out with many facts, already gained through observation and experiment, which need the assumption of some other fact or facts attained through reasoning from the others, to make them fit together into a coherent and intelligible system. Every important new discovery in science makes necessary arguments of this sort. When the minute forms of life that the layman lumps together under the name "germs" were discovered there was a host of arguments to explain their manner of life and the way some of them cause disease and others carry on functions beneficent to mankind. A notable example of the arguments concerning this kind of fact is that at page 251 concerning the cause of yellow fever; and another is Huxley's argument on evolution (p. 233), where he points out that "the question is a question of historical fact." The element of uncertainty in the settlement of such questions is due to the facts being too large or too minute for human observation, or to their ranging through great ages of time so that we must be contented with overwhelming probability rather than with absolute proof. Furthermore the facts that are established in arguments of this sort may have to be modified by new discoveries: for many generations it was held to be a fact that malaria was caused by a miasma; now we know that it is caused by a germ, which is carried by mosquitoes. Arguments of this type tend to go through a curious cycle: they begin their life as arguments, recognized as such; then becoming the accepted explanation of the facts which are known, for a longer or shorter time they flourish as statements of the truth; and then with the uncovering of new facts they crumble away or are transformed into new and larger theories. Darwin's great theory of the origin of species has passed through two of these stages. He spoke of it as an argument, and for a few years it was assailed with fierce counterarguments; we now hold it to be a masterful explanation of an enormous body of facts. When it will pass on to the next stage we cannot foresee; but chemists and physicists darkly hint at the possibility of the evolution of inorganic as well as organic substances.
In arguments of fact, it will be noticed, there is little or no element of persuasion, for we deal with such matters almost wholly through our understanding and reason. Huxley, in his argument on evolution, which was addressed to a popular audience, was careful to choose examples that would be familiar; but his treatment of the subject was strictly expository in tone. In some arguments of this sort, which touch on the great forces of the universe and on the nature of the world of life of which we are an infinitesimal part, the tone of the discourse will take on warmth and eloquence; just as Webster in the White Murder Case, dealing with an issue of life and death, let the natural eloquence which always smoldered in his speech, burn up into a clear glow. But both Huxley and Webster would have held any studied appeal to emotion to be an impertinence.
In ordinary life most of us make fewer arguments of fact than of policy. It is only a small minority of our young men who become lawyers, and of them many do not practice before juries. Nor do any large number of men become scholars or men of science or public men, who have to deal with questions of historical fact or to make arguments of fact on large states of affairs. On the other hand, all of us have to weigh and estimate arguments of fact pretty constantly. Sooner or later most men serve on juries; and all students have to read historical and economical arguments. We shall therefore give some space in Chapter III to considering the principles of reasoning by which we arrive at and test conclusions as to the existence of facts, and the truth of assertions about them.
9. Arguments of Policy. When we turn from arguments of fact to arguments of policy it will be noticed that there is a change in the phraseology that we use: we no longer say that the assertions we maintain or meet are true or not true, but that the proposals are right or expedient or wrong or inexpedient; for now we are talking about what should or should not be done. We say, naturally and correctly, that it is or is not true that woman suffrage has improved political conditions in Colorado but it would be a misuse of words to say that it is true or not true that woman suffrage should be adopted in Ohio; and still more so to use the word "false," which has an inseparable tinge of moral obliquity. In questions of policy that turn on expediency, and in some, as we shall see directly, that turn on moral issues, we know beforehand that in the end some men who know the subject as well as we do and whose judgment is as good and whose standards are as high, will still disagree. There are certain large temperamental lines which have always divided mankind: some men are born conservative minded, some radical minded: the former must needs find things as they are on the whole good, the latter must needs see vividly how they can be improved. To the scientific temperament the artistic temperament is unstable and irrational, as the former is dry and ungenerous to the latter. Such broad and recognized types, with a few others like them, ramify into a multitude of ephemeral parties and classes,—racial, political, social, literary, scholarly,—and most of the arguments in the world can be followed back to these essential and irremovable differences of character. Individual practical questions, however, cross and recross these lines, and in such cases arguments have much practical effect in crystallizing opinion and judgment; for in a complicated case it is often extremely hard to see the real bearing of a proposed policy, and a good argument comes as a guide from the gods to the puzzled and wavering. But though to be effective in practical affairs one has to be positive, yet that is not saying that one must believe that the other side are fools or knaves. Some such confusion of thought in the minds of some reformers, both eminent and obscure, accounts for the wake of bitterness which often follows the progress of reform. Modesty and toleration are as important as positiveness to the man who is to make a mark in the world.
Arguments of policy are of endless variety, for we are all of us making them all the time, from the morning hour in which we argue with ourselves, so often ineffectually, that we really ought to get up when the clock strikes, to the arguments about choosing a profession or helping to start a movement for universal peace. It would be a weariness to the flesh to attempt a classification of them that should pretend to be exhaustive; but there are certain major groups of human motive which will be a good basis for a rough, but convenient, sorting out of the commoner kinds of arguments of policy. In practical affairs we ask first if there is any principle of right or wrong involved, then what is best for the practical interests of ourselves and other people, and in a few cases, when these other considerations are irrelevant, what course is dictated by our ideas of fitness and beauty. I will briefly discuss a few of the main types of the argument of policy, grouping them according as they appeal chiefly to the sense of right and wrong, to practical interests, or to aesthetic interests.
There are many arguments outside of sermons which turn on questions of right and wrong. Questions of individual personal conduct we had better not get into; but every community, whether large or small, has often to face questions in which moral right and wrong are essentially involved. In this country the whole question of dealing with the sale of alcoholic drinks is recognized as such. The supporters of state prohibition declare that it is morally wrong to sanction a trade out of which springs so much misery; the supporters of local option and high license, admitting and fighting against all this misery and crime, declare that it is morally wrong to shut one's eyes to the uncontrolled sales and the political corruption under state-wide prohibition. The strongest arguments for limiting by law the hours of labor for women and children have always been based on moral principles; and all arguments for political reform hark back to the Ten Commandments. One has the strongest of all arguments if he can establish a moral right and wrong in the question.
The difficulty comes in establishing the right and wrong, for there are many cases where equally good people are fighting dead against each other. The question of prohibition, as we have just seen, is one of those cases; the slavery question was a still more striking one. From before the Revolution the feeling that slavery was morally wrong slowly but steadily gained ground in the North, until from 1850 it became more and more a dominant and passionate conviction.[1] Yet in the South, which, as we must now admit, bred as many men and women of high devotion to the right, this view had only scattered followers. On both sides tradition and environment molded the moral principle. In arguing, therefore, one must not be too swift in calling on heaven to witness to the right; we must recognize that mortal vision is weak, and that some of the people whom we are fighting are borne on by principles as sincerely held to be righteous as our own.
Nevertheless, a man must always hold to that which to him seems right, and fight hard against the wrong, tolerantly and with charity, but with unclouded purpose. In politics there are still in this country many occasions when the only argument possible is based on moral right. The debauching of public servants by favors or bribes, whether open or indirect, injustice of all sorts, putting men who are mentally or morally unfit into public office, oppression of the poor or unjust bleeding of the rich, stirring up class or race hatred, are all evils from which good citizens must help to save the republic; and wherever such evils are found the moral argument is the only argument worthy of a decent citizen.
By far the most numerous of arguments of policy, however, are those which do not rise above the level of practical interests. The line between these and arguments of moral right is not always easy to draw, for in the tangle of life and character right and advantage often run together. The tariff question is a case in point. Primarily it turns on the practical material advantage of a nation; but inevitably in the settling of individual schedules the way opens for one industry or branch of business to fatten at the expense of another, and so we run into the question of the square deal and the golden rule.
In general, however, the great questions on which political parties divide are questions of practical expediency. Shall we, as a nation, be more comfortable and more prosperous if the powers of the federal government are strengthened and extended? Shall we have better local government under the old-fashioned form of city government, or under some form of commission government? Should we have more business and more profitable business if we had free trade with the Dominion of Canada? Shall we be better off under the Republican or the Democratic party? All these are questions in which there is little concern with right and wrong: they turn on the very practical matter of direct material advantage. In some of these cases most men vote on one side or the other largely through long habit; but there constantly arise, especially in local matters, questions which cross the usual lines of political division, so that one, willingly or unwillingly, must take the trouble of thinking out a decision for himself. Not infrequently one is a good deal puzzled to decide on which side to range himself, for the issues may be complex; then one reads the arguments or goes to meetings until one side or the other seems to present the most and the most important advantages. When one is thus puzzled, an argument which is clear and easy to understand, and which makes its points in such a way that they can be readily carried in mind and passed on to the next person one meets, has a wonderful power of winning one to its side.
The arguments of policy which, after political arguments, are the most common, are those on questions of law. As we have seen a few pages back, such arguments are settled by the judges, while questions of fact are left to the jury. In the White Murder Case, in which Daniel Webster made a famous argument, it was a question of fact for the jury whether the defendant Knapp was in Brown Street at the time of the murder, and whether he was there for the purpose of aiding and abetting Crowninshield, the actual murderer; the question whether his presence outside the house would make him liable as a principal in the crime was a question of law. This distinction between questions of fact and questions of law is one of the foundation principles of the common law. From the very beginning of the jury system, when the jury consisted of neighbors who found their verdict from their own knowledge of the case, to the present day when they are required carefully to purge their minds of any personal knowledge of the case, the common law has always held that in the long run questions of fact can best be settled by average men, drawn by lot from the community. Questions of law, on the other hand, need learning and special training in legal reasoning, for the common law depends on continuity and consistency of decision; and a new case must be decided by the principles which have governed like cases in the past.
Nevertheless, these principles, which are now embodied in an enormous mass of decisions by courts all over the English-speaking world, are in essence a working out into minute discriminations of certain large principles, which in turn are merely the embodiment of the practical rules under which the Anglo-Saxon race has found it safest and most convenient to live together. They settle in each case what, in view of the interests of the community as a whole and in the long run, and not merely for the parties now at issue, is the most convenient and the justest thing to do. Mr. Justice Holmes, of the Supreme Court of the United States, wrote before his appointment to that bench:
"In substance the growth of the law is legislative. And this in a deeper sense than that what the courts declare to have always been the law is in fact new. It is legislative in its grounds. The very considerations which judges most rarely mention, and always with an apology, are the secret roots from which tine law draws all the juices of life. I mean of course considerations of what is expedient for the community concerned. Every important principle which is developed by litigation is in fact and at bottom the result of move or less definitely understood views of public policy; most generally, to be sure, under our practices and traditions, the unconscious result of instinctive preferences and inarticulate convictions, but none the less traceable to views of public policy in the last analysis."[2]
In some cases it is obvious that the question of law is a question of policy, as in the so-called "political decisions" of the United States Supreme Court. Such were the decisions formulated by Chief Justice Marshall on constitutional questions, which made our government what it is. The difference between "the strict construction" of the Constitution and the "free construction" was due to a difference of temperament which has always tended to mark the two great political parties of the country. So with the Insular cases, which determined the status of the distant possessions of the United Stales, and which split the Supreme Court into so many pieces: the question whether the Constitution applied in all its fullness to Porto Rico and the Philippines was essentially a political question, though of the largest sort, and therefore a question of policy.
Finally, there are the arguments of policy which deal with matters of taste and aesthetic preference. The difficulty with these arguments is that they do deal with questions of taste, and so fall under the ancient and incontrovertible maxim, de gustibus non est disputandum. Artists of all varieties and some critics are given to talking as if preferences in color, in shape, in styles of music, were absolutely right and wrong, and as if they partook in some way of the nature of moral questions; but any one who has observed for even twenty years knows that what the architects of twenty years ago declared the only true style of art is now scoffed at by them and their successors as hopelessly false. The cavelike forms of the Byzantine or Romanesque which superseded the wooden Gothic have in turn given way to Renaissance classic in its various forms, which now in turn seem on the point of slipping into the rococo classical of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In painting, the violent and spotty impressionism of twenty years ago is paling into the study of the cool and quiet lights of the Dutchmen of the great period.[3] And at each stage there are strenuous arguments that the ideas of that particular live years are the only hope for the preservation of the art concerned.
The essential difficulty with all such arguments is that the aesthetic interests to which they appeal are personal, and depend on personal preferences. Most of us in such matters, having no special knowledge, and liking some variety of differing styles, modestly give way to the authority of any one who makes a profession of the art. In the laying out of a park a landscape architect may prefer single trees and open spaces, where the neighbors and abutters prefer a grove. In the long run his taste is no better than theirs, though he may argue as if they were ignorant and uncultivated because they disagree with him. In all such cases, unless there is some consideration of practical expediency, such as letting the southwest wind blow through in summer, arguments can do little except to make and keep everybody angry. Their chief value is to make us see things which perhaps we had not thought of.
In practice these three kinds of arguments, which turn on moral, practical, and aesthetic considerations, tend to be much mingled. The human mind is very complex, and our various interests and preferences are inseparably tangled. The treacheries of self-analysis are proverbial, and are only less dangerous than trying to make out the motives of other people. Accordingly we must expect to find that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between moral and aesthetic motives and practical, for the morality and the taste of a given people always in part grow out of the slow crystallizing of practical expediencies, and notions of morality change with the advance of civilization.
Furthermore, one must never forget that an argument of policy which does not involve and rest on subsidiary questions of fact is rare; and the questions of fact must be settled before we can go on with the argument of policy. Before this country can intelligently make up its mind about the protective tariff, and whether a certain rate of duty should be imposed on a given article, a very complex body of facts dealing with the cost of production both here and abroad must be settled, and this can be done only by men highly trained in the principles of business and political economy. Before one could vote intelligently on the introduction of a commission form of government into the town he lives in he must know the facts about the places in which it has already been tried. It is not too much to say that there is no disputed question of policy into which there does not enter the necessity of looking up and settling pertinent facts.
On the other hand, there are some cases of questions of fact in which our practical interests deeply affect the view which we take of the facts. In all the discussions of the last few years about federal supervision and control of the railroads it has been hard to get at the facts because of the conflicting statements about them by equally honest and well-informed men. Where there is an honest difference of interest, as in every case of a bargain, the opposite sides cannot see the facts in the same way: what is critically significant to the railroad manager seems of no great consequence to the shipper; and the railroad manager does not see the fixed laws of trade which make it impossible for the shipper to pay higher freight rates and add them to the price of his goods. It is not in human nature to see the whole cogency of facts that make for the other side. In all arguments, therefore, it must be remembered that we are; constantly swinging backward and forward from matters of fact to matters of policy. In practice no hard-and-fast line separates the various classes and types; in the arguments of real life we mingle them naturally and unconsciously.
Yet the distinction between the two main classes is a real one, and if one has never thought it out, one may go at an argument with a blurred notion of what he is attempting to do. Since argument after school and college is an eminently practical matter, vagueness of aim is risky. It is the man who sees exactly what he is trying to do, and knows exactly what he can accomplish, who is likely to make his point. The chief value of writing arguments for practice is in cultivating a keen eye for the essential. To write a good argument means, as we shall see, that the student shall first conscientiously take the question, apart so as to know exactly the issues involved and the unavoidable points of difference, and then after searching the sources for information, he shall scrutinize the facts and the reasoning both on his own side and on the other. If he does this work without shirking the hard thinking he will get an illuminating perception of the obscurities and ambiguities which lurk in words, and will come to see that clear reasoning is almost wholly a matter of sharper discrimination for unobserved distinctions.
EXERCISES
1. Find an example which might be thought of either as an argument or an exposition, and explain why you think it one or the other.
2. Find examples in current magazines or newspapers of an argument in which conviction is the chief element, and one in which persuasion counts most.
3. Give three examples from your talk within the last week of a discussion which was not argument as we use the term here.
4. Show how, in the case of some current subject of discussion, the arguments would differ in substance and tone for three possible audiences.
5. Find three examples each of questions of fact and questions of policy from current newspapers or magazines.
6. Find three examples of questions of fact in law cases, not more than one of them from a criminal case.
7. Find three examples of questions of fact in history or literature.
8. Find three questions of a large state of affairs from current political discussions. 9. Find three examples of questions of fact in science.
10. Find from the history of the last fifty years three examples of questions which turned on moral right.
11. Give three examples of questions of expediency which you have heard argued within the last week.
12. Give an example from recent decisions of the courts which seems to you to have turned on a question of policy.
13. Give two examples of questions of aesthetic taste which you have recently heard argued.
14. In an actual case which has been or which might be argued, show how both classes of argument and more than one of the types within them enter naturally into the discussion.
15. Name three subjects which you have lately discussed which would not be profitable subjects for a formal argument.
16. Name five good subjects for an argument in which you would draw chiefly from your personal experience.
17. Name five subjects in which you would get the material from reading.
18. Name five subjects which would combine your own experience with reading.
19. Find how many words to the page you write on the paper you would use for a written argument. Count the number of words in a page of this book; in the column of the editorial page of a newspaper.
CHAPTER II
PLANNING THE ARGUMENT
10. Preparations for the Argument. When you have chosen the subject for your argument there is still much to do before you are ready to write it out. In the first place, you must find out by search and reading what is to be said both for and against the view you are supporting; in the second place, with the facts in mind you must analyze both them and the question to see just what is the point that you are arguing; then, in the third place, you must arrange the material you are going to use so that it will be most effective for your purpose. Each of these steps I shall consider in turn in this chapter.
As a practical convenience, each student should start a notebook, in which he can keep together all the notes he makes in the course of his preparations for writing the argument. Number the pages of the notebook, and leave the first two pages blank for a table of contents. A box of cards, such as will be described on page 31, will serve as well as a notebook, and in some ways is more convenient. From time to time, in the course of the chapter I shall mention points that should be entered.
For the sake of convenience in exposition I shall use as an example the preparations for an argument in favor of introducing the commission form of government into an imaginary city, Wytown; and each of the directions for the use of the notebook I shall illustrate by entries appropriate to this argument. The argument, let us suppose, is addressed to the citizens of the place, who know the general facts relating to the city and its government. In creating this imaginary city, let us give it about eight thousand inhabitants, and suppose that it is of small area, and that the inhabitants are chiefly operatives in a number of large shoe factories, of American descent, though foreign-born citizens and their offspring are beginning to gain on the others. And further, let us suppose that this imaginary city of Wytown now has a city government with a mayor of limited powers, a small board of aldermen, and a larger city council. The other necessary facts will appear in the introduction to the brief.
11. Reading for the Argument. The first step in preparing for an argument is to find out what has been already written on the general subject, and what facts are available for your purpose. For this purpose you must go to the best library that is within convenient reach. Just how to look for material there I shall discuss a few pages further on; here I shall make some more general suggestions about reading and taking notes.
Almost always it pays to give two or three hours to some preliminary reading that will make you see the general scope of the subject, and the points on which there is disagreement. An article in a good encyclopedia or one in a magazine may serve the purpose; or in some cases you can go to the opening chapter or two of a book. If you have already discussed the subject with other people this preliminary reading may not be necessary; but if you start in to read on a new subject without some general idea of its scope you may waste time through not knowing your way and so following false leads.
In your reading do not rest satisfied with consulting authorities on your own side only. We shall presently see how important it is to be prepared to meet arguments on the other side; and unless you have read something on that side, you will not know what points you ought to deal with in your refutation. In that event you may leave undisturbed in the minds of your readers points which have all the more significance from your having ignored them. One of the first reasons for wide reading in preparation for an argument is to assure yourself that you have a competent knowledge of the other side as well as of your own.
In using your sources keep clearly and constantly in mind the difference between fact and opinion. The opinions of a great scholar and of a farseeing statesman may be based on fact; but not being fact they contain some element of inference, which is never as certain. When we come to the next chapter we shall consider this difference more closely. In the meantime it is worth while to urge the importance of cultivating scruples on the subject and a keen eye for the intrusion of human, and therefore fallible, opinion into statements of fact. A trustworthy author states the facts as facts, with the authorities for them specifically cited; and where he builds his own opinions on the facts he leaves no doubt as to where fact ends and opinion begins.
The power to estimate a book or an article on a cursory inspection is of great practical value. The table of contents in a book, and sometimes the index, will give a good idea of its scope; and samples of a few pages at a time, especially on critical points, which can be chosen by means of the index, will show its general attitude and tone. The index, if properly made, will furnish a sure guide to its relevance for the purpose in hand. Half an hour spent in this way, with attention concentrated, will in most cases settle whether the book is worth reading through. An article can be "sized up" in much the same way: if it is at all well written the first paragraphs will give a pretty definite idea of the subject and the scope of the article; and the beginnings, and often the ends, of the paragraphs will show the course which the thought follows. Though such skimming cannot be relied on for a real knowledge of the subject, it is invaluable as a guide for this preliminary reading.
12. Taking Notes. In reading for your argument, as for all scholarly reading, form early your habits of taking thorough and serviceable notes. Nothing is more tantalizing than to remember that you once ran across a highly important fact and then not be able to recall the place in which it is to be found.
One of the most convenient ways to take notes for an argument is to write each fact or quotation on a separate card. Cards convenient for the purpose can be had at any college stationer or library-supply bureau. If you use them, have an ample supply of them, so that you will not have to put more than one fact on each. Leave space for a heading at the top which will refer to a specific subheading of your brief, when that is ready. Always add an exact reference to the source—title, name of author, and, in case of a book, place and date of publication, so that if you want more material you can find it without loss of time, and, what is more important, so that you can fortify your use of it by a reference in a footnote. When you find a passage that you think will be worth quoting in the original words, quote with scrupulous and literal accuracy: apart from the authority you gain by so doing, you have no right to make any one else say words he did not say. If you leave out part of the passage, show the omission by dots; and in such a case, if you have to supply words of your own, as for example a noun in place of a pronoun, use square brackets, thus []. On the following page are examples of a convenient form of such notes.
* * * * *
RESULTS IN DES MOINES
The streets have been kept cleaner than ever before for $35,000. The rates for electric lights have been reduced from $90 to $65. Gas rates have dropped again from $22 to $17. Water rates have dropped from 30c to 20c per 1000 gal. The disreputable district has been cleaned up and bond sharks driven out of business.
The Des Moines Plan of City Government, World's Work, Vol. XVIII, P. 11533.
PRESIDENT ELIOT'S VIEWS
"Now city business is almost wholly administrative and executive and very little concerned with large plans and far-reaching legislation. There is no occasion for two legislative bodies, or even one, in the government of a city.... Now and then a question arises which the will of the whole people properly expressed may best settle; but for the prompt and conclusive expression of that will the initiative and referendum are now well-recognized means."
C. W. Eliot, City Government by Fewer Men, World's Work, Vol. XIV p. 9419.
* * * * *
In making notes, whether for an argument or for general college work, it is convenient, unless you know shorthand, to have a system of signs and abbreviations and of contractions for common words. The simpler shorthand symbols can be pressed into service; and one can follow the practice of stenography, which was also that of the ancient Hebrew writing, of leaving out vowels, for there are few words that cannot be recognized at a glance from their consonants. If you use this system at lectures you can soon come surprisingly near to a verbatim report which will preserve something more than bare facts.
In your reading for material do not cultivate habits of economy or parsimony. You should always have a considerable amount of good fact left over, for unless you know a good deal of the region on the outskirts of your argument you will feel cramped and uncertain within it. The effect of having something in reserve is a powerful, though an intangible, asset in an argument; and, on the other hand, the man who has emptied his magazine is in a risky situation.
13. Sources for Facts. In the main, there are two kinds of sources for facts, sources in which the facts have already been collected and digested, and sources where they are still scattered and must be brought together and grouped by the investigator. Obviously there is no sharp or permanent distinction between these two classes. Let us first run through some of the books which are commonly available as sources of either kind, and then come back to the use of them.
To find material in books and magazines there are certain well-known guides. To look up books go first to the catalogue of the nearest library. Here in most cases you will find some sort of subject catalogue, in which the subjects are arranged alphabetically; and if you can use the alphabet readily, as by no means all college students can, you can soon get a list of the books that are there available on the subject. On many subjects there are bibliographies, or lists of books, such as those published by the Library of Congress; these will be found in every large library. For articles in magazines and weekly journals, which on most current questions have fresh information, besides a great deal of valuable material on older questions, go to Poole's "Index to Periodical Literature," which is an index both by title and subject to the articles in important English and American magazines from 1802 to 1906, and to "The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature," which began in 1901 and includes more magazines, and which is brought up to date every month.
For other material the works listed below will be serviceable; they are the best known of the reference books, and some of them will be found in all libraries and all of them in large libraries. The books on this list by no means exhaust the number of good books of their own kind; they are good examples, and others will ordinarily be found on the same shelves with them.
DICTIONARIES
THE NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY (MURRAY'S) Unfinished: to have ten volumes, of which nine have now been published. This gives the history of each word for the last seven hundred years, with copious quotations, dated, to show the changes in its use.
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY, CYCLOPEDIA OF NAMES, AND ATLAS New edition, 1911, in twelve volumes. This has fuller information about the meanings of the words than is usually found in a dictionary.
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY (WEBSTER'S) New edition, 1910, enlarged, with copious and exact etymologies.
ROGET'S THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES A standard book of synonyms.
FERNALD, ENGLISH SYNONYMS, ANTONYMS, AND PREPOSITIONS With illustrations and expositions of the differences in meaning.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA Very full; highly authoritative; 11th edition, 1910.
NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA Briefer; reedited in 1904.
LA GRANDE ENCYCLOPIDIE; BROCKHAUS, KONVERSATIONS-LEXIKON Both copious and authoritative.
ALLUSIONS AND QUOTATIONS
CRUDEN'S CONCORDANCE An index to every word in the Bible.
BARTLETT'S CONCORDANCE TO SHAKESPEARE An index to every word in Shakespeare.
BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS An index to a very large number of the quotations most frequently met with.
BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE This explains a great quantity of common allusions in words and phrases.
DICTIONARIES OF PROPER NAMES
CENTURY CYCLOPEDIA OF NAMES This includes not only names of real persons, but also those of many famous characters in fiction.
LIPPINCOTT'S UNIVERSAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY AND MYTHOLOGY
DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY Revised edition. Confined to English biography, and to persons dead at the dale of publication of Supplement (1909). The articles are full, and of the highest authority. In the index and epitome is a convenient summary of dates and facts.
APPLETON'S CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY Six volumes, 1887-1901; with supplement (unfinished), bringing it down to date.
WHO'S WHO An annual publication; English, but with some American names; living persons only.
WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA; WER IST'S; QUI ETES-VOUS Corresponding works for America, Germany, and France.
DEBRETT'S PEERAGE A repository of a great mass of facts concerning English families of historical distinction.
FOR CURRENT OR HISTORICAL FACTS
THE STATESMAN'S YEAR BOOK Arranged by countries; contains a great mass of facts; has a bibliography at the end of each country or state.
THE WORLD ALMANAC; THE TRIBUNE ALMANAC Examples of annuals issued by large newspapers, which contain an enormous mass of facts, chiefly American.
WHITAKER'S ALMANAC Much miscellaneous information about the British empire and other countries.
THE ANNUAL REGISTER; THE NEW INTERNATIONAL YEARBOOK; THE AMERICAN YEARBOOK These three give information about the events of the preceding year.
INDEX TO THE LONDON Times
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS
LIPPINCOTT'S NEW GAZETTEER A geographical dictionary of the world.
THE CENTURY ATLAS With classified references to places.
THE HANDY REFERENCE ATLAS Small size (octavo); a most useful book for the desk or library table.
PLOETZ'S EPITOME OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY A very compact epitome of history, with all the important dates.
NOTES AND QUERIES A periodical devoted to notes and queries on a multitude of curious and out-of-the-way facts; yearly index volumes are issued.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES ISSUED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
SONNENSCHEIN'S THE BEST BOOKS A guide to about fifty thousand of the best available books in a great variety of fields, classified by subject.
Make yourself familiar with all of these books which are within your reach. Get into the habit, when you have a few minutes to spare, of taking them down from the shelves and turning over the pages to see what they contain. And whenever a question of fact comes up in general talk, make a mental note of it, or better, one in writing, and the next time you go to the library hunt it up in one of these reference books. You will be surprised to see, when once you have made the habit, how short a time it takes to settle disputes about most facts; and at the same time you will be extending your general knowledge.
In learning the use of these and other books, do not forget the most important source of all, the librarian. The one guiding principle of modern librarianship is to make the books useful; and it gives every proper librarian active pleasure to show you how to use the books in his charge.
In using books and magazines scrutinize the character of the source. Is it impartial or partisan? Is its treatment of the subject exhaustive and definite, or cursory and superficial? Does the author know the subject at first hand, or does he rely on other men? On such points the second book or article will be easier to estimate than the first, and the third than the second; for with each new source you have the earlier ones as a basis for comparison. In any case do not trust to a single authority: no matter how authoritative it is, sooner or later the narrow basis of your views will betray itself, for an argument which is merely a revamping of some one else's views is not likely to have much spontaneity.
In many subjects, and especially those of new or local interest, you will not find the facts gathered and assimilated for you; you must go out and gather your own straw for the making of your bricks. Such are most questions of reform or change in school or college systems, in athletics, in municipal affairs, in short, most of the questions on which the average man after he leaves college is likely to be making arguments.
To get decisive facts on such questions as these you must go, in the case of local subjects, to the newspapers, to city and town reports, or to documents issued by interested committees; for college questions you go to the presidents' reports and to annual catalogues or catalogues of graduates, or perhaps to Graduates' Bulletins or Weeklies; for athletic questions you go to the files of the daily newspapers, or for records to such works as the World or Tribune Almanacs; for school questions you go to school catalogues, or to school-committee reports. You will be surprised to find how little time you use to get together bodies of facts and figures that may make you, in a small way, an original authority on the subject you are discussing. It does not take long to count a few hundred names, or to run through the files of a newspaper for a week or a month; and when you have done such investigation you get a sense of surety in dealing with your subject that will strengthen your argument. Here, as in the larger discussions of later life, the readiness to take the initiative and the ingenuity in thinking of possible sources are what make you count.
Such sources you can often piece out by personal inquiry from men who are conversant with the subject—town or city officers, members of faculties, principals of schools. If you go to such people hoping that they will do your work for you, you will not be likely to get much comfort; but if you are keen about your subject yourself, and ready to work, you will often get not only valuable information and advice, but sometimes also a chance to go through unpublished records. A young man who is working hard and intelligently is apt to be an object of interest to older men who have been doing the same all their lives.
EXERCISES
1. Name those of the sources on pages 34-36, which are available to you. Report to the class on the scope and character of each of them. (The report on different sources can be divided among the class.)
2. Name some sources for facts relating to your own school or college; to your own town or city; to your own state.
3. Report on the following, in not more than one hundred words, naming the source from which you got your information: the situation and government of the Fiji Islands; Circe; the author of "A man's a man for a' that"; Becky Sharp; the age of President Taft and the offices he has held; the early career of James Madison; the American amateur record in the half-mile run; the family name of Lord Salisbury, and a brief account of his career; the salary of the mayor of New York; the island of Guam: some of the important measures passed by Congress in the session of 1910-1911. (This exercise a teacher can vary indefinitely by turning over the pages of reference books which his class can reach; or the students can be set to making exercises for each other.)
14. Bibliography. Before starting in earnest on the reading for your argument, begin a bibliography, that is, a list of the books and articles and speeches which will help you. This bibliography should be entered in your notebook, and it is convenient to allow space enough there to keep the different kinds of sources separate. In making your bibliography you will use some of the sources which have just been described, especially "Poole's Index," and "The Reader's Guide," and the subject catalogue of the library. Make your entries so full that you can go at once to the source; it is poor economy to save a minute on copying down a title, and then waste ten or fifteen in going back to the source from which you got it. On large subjects the number of books and articles is far beyond the possibilities of most courses in argumentation, and here you must exercise your judgment in choosing the most important. The name of the author is on the whole a safe guide: if you find an article or a book by President Eliot on an educational subject, or one by President Hadley on economics, or one by President Jordan on zoology, or one by any of them on university policy, you will know at once that you cannot afford to neglect it. As you go on with your reading you will soon find who are authorities on special subjects by noting who are quoted in text and footnotes. If the subject happens to be one of those on which a bibliography has been issued either by the Library of Congress or from some other source, the making of your own bibliography will reduce itself to a selection from this list.
Keep your bibliography as a practical aid to you in a very practical task. Do not swell it from mere love of accumulation, as you might collect stamps. The making of exhaustive bibliographies is work for advanced scholarship or for assistant librarians. For the practical purposes of making an argument a very moderate number of titles beyond those you can actually use will give you sufficient background.
Notebook. Enter in your notebook the titles of books, articles, or speeches which bear on your subject, and which you are likely to be able to read.
Illustration. Bibliography for an argument on introducing commission government of the Des Moines type into Wytown.
BOOKS
WOODRUFF, C. R. City Government by Commission. New York, 1911. Bibliography in appendix.
HAMILTON, J. J. The Dethronement of the City Boss. New York, 1910.
ARTICLES
From Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Vol. II (1905-1909). (There are thirty entries here under the heading, Municipal Government, and the subheading, Government by Commission. Of these I omit those dealing with cities in Texas, as not bearing directly on the Des Moines plan, and select seven of the most recent.)
"Another City for Commission Government," World's Work, Vol. XVIII (June, 1909), p. 11,639.
"City Government." Outlook. Vol. XCII (August 14, 1909), pp. 865-866.
BRADFORD, E. S. "Commission Government in American Cities," National Conference on City Government (1909), pp. 217-228.
PEARSON, P. M. "Commission System of Municipal Government" (bibliography), Intercollegiate Debates, pp. 461-477.
ALLEN, S. B. "Des Moines Plan," National Conference on City Government (1907), pp. 156-165.
"Des Moines Plan of City Government," World's Work, Vol. XVIII (May, 1909), p. 11,533.
GOODYEAR, D. "The Example of Haverhill," Independent, Vol. LXVI (January, 1909), p. 194.
From Reader's Guide (1910). (Seven entries, of which I select the following.)
GOODYEAR, D. "The Experience of Haverhill," Independent, Vol. LXVIII (February, 1910), p. 415.
"Rapid Growth of Commission Government," Outlook, Vol. XCIV (April, 1910), p. 822.
TURNER, G. K. "New American City Government," McClure's, Vol. XXXV (May, 1910), pp. 97-108.
"Organization of Municipal Government," American Government and Politics; pp. 598-602.
15. Planning for a Definite Audience. Before setting to work on the actual planning of your argument there are still two preliminary questions you have to consider—the prepossessions of your audience, and the burden of proof; of these the latter is dependent on the former.
When you get out into active life and have an argument to make, this question of the audience will force itself on your attention, for you will not make the argument unless you want to influence views which are actually held. In a school or college argument you have the difficulty that your argument will in most cases have no such practical effect. Nevertheless, even here you can get better practice by fixing on some body of readers who might be influenced by an argument on your subject, and addressing yourself specifically to them. You can hardly consider the burden of proof or lay out the space which you will give to different points in your argument unless you take into account the present knowledge and the prepossessions of your audience on the subject.
Where the question is large and abstract the audience may be so general as to seem to have no special characteristics; but if you will think of the differences of tone and attitude of two different newspapers in treating some local subject you will see that readers always segregate themselves into types. Even on a larger scale, one can say that the people of the United States as a whole are optimistic and self-confident in temper, and in consequence careless as to many minor deficiencies and blemishes in our national polity. On a good many questions the South, which is still chiefly agricultural, has different interests and prepossessions from the North; and the West, being a new country, is inclined to have less reverence for the vested rights of property as against the rights of men, than the Eastern states, where wealth has long been concentrated and inherited.
As one narrows down to the immediate or local questions which make the best subjects for practice the part played by the audience becomes more apparent. The reform of the rules of football is a good example: a few years ago an audience of elderly people would have taken for granted the brutality of the game, and its tendency to put a premium on unfair play; the rules committee, made up of believers in the game, had to be hammered at for several years before they made the changes which have so greatly improved it. So in matters of local or municipal interest, such as the location of a new street car line, or the laying out of a park, it will make a vast difference to you whether you are writing for people who have land on the proposed line or park, or for the general body of citizens. |
|
