Mere acquisitiveness is not a scholarly trait; the scholar accepts the contributions of others as the data upon which to base his own judgments. Not all of these reasoning processes would be, in the strictest sense, called argumentation, for argument proper postulates or assumes a proposition to be proved. Reaching the proposition or conclusion is, however, in many cases, the most vital part of the operation. Besides, all propositions are not equally suitable for argument, and we make sorry work of arguing if we start with a poor proposition. For these reasons we shall make it our business to find how a proposition for argument is obtained as well as how its truth or falsity is demonstrated. This preliminary work may be broadly classified under three heads, Selecting the Question, Deciding on the Proposition, and Stating the Proposition. SELECTING THE QUESTION THE student who wishes to derive full benefit from the study of argumentation will do well to resist the temptation to consult published lists of questions for debate or to ask some friend to suggest an appropriate subject. The best question is one that grows out of one's own experience. We are living to little purpose if circumstances and events do not make us think, do not stimulate in us questions, and give rise to problems to which we wish to find the answers. One who has this habit of incurious acceptance of whatever comes to one without inquiry can not be too soon rid of it. The man who is able to work out and test the solution of problems proposed by others is a serviceable man for routine work. But the one who takes the initiative, who suggests the problem, who proposes the solution, is indispensable to progress. Many surgeons stand ready to perform the operation when the master surgeon has diagnosed the case and inferred the source of the trouble from the symptoms; the schoolboy can test Newton's law of gravitation ; Columbus had followers in plenty; steamboats, locomotives, cotton gins, sewing machines, were manu factured by the thousand after the first was made; a higher law than that of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth having been uttered, ordinary men can preach it. The inventor, pointing the way to improved methods; the general, foreseeing the enemy's move; the prophet, announcing the need of social reform, these rather than the mechanic at his bench, the man behind the gun, the faithful disciple, are the men we wish to emulate. The quality that makes them great is called for by the everyday affairs of life. In general, the head is more important than the hand; the housekeeper, not the servants, the merchant not the clerks, the teacher not the students, is held responsible for the failure or success of the home, the shop, the school. Since, then, to project is important as well as to carry into effect, we must not let others do this valuable part of our work for us. It is not enough to prove a proposition derived by another; we should not be willing to surrender our right to the initiative to any one else. We must cultivate the habit of originating questions. Let us look into our own experience and see if questions for discussion do not suggest themselves. It is not supposable that they will be questions that have never been discussed. They may have been debated for hundreds of years and yet be original for us. If a personal experience has vitalized the question, has made it one that we |