ful for the same reasons that would apply to such a method in athletics. The division on the basis of ability promises relief from several common difficulties in debating. The student of ordinary ability will not be forced to stimulate an interest in intricate and comprehensive subjects. The born debater will not lose interest through being obliged to listen to the puerile efforts of the less gifted. If the real athletes of a school had to exercise their powers in the same limited scope as the rest of the school, how would our athletics fare? We should not be surprised at a decrease in interest and efficiency. Such a division as has been suggested would simplify the matter of choosing subjects. The larger society will be popular in aim, selecting such subjects for discussion as will require a minimum of time for research work and will arouse enthusiasm without effort. The stress will be placed on original thought. The smaller society will need no urging to select the heavier topics which require time and a wide range of information. Although the adoption of this method may remedy the more serious faults, there is still another difficulty which is in part accountable for the lack of enthusiasm. No one can feel much interest in what he considers a "fixed game" and, all too frequently in inter-school contests, the suspicion arises that the decision of the judges was not entirely fair. By this I do not mean that the judges deserve criticism, but that they were not wisely chosen. A common method of selection is for each school to choose one judge and then for them to decide upon the third in conjunction. This may seem a sensible plan and a fair one; however, in a series of eight inter-collegiate debates where it was employed, I know that in every case the judge voted for the college which had selected him, the decision resting always with the judge chosen by both sides. A better method might be the one adopted in the Western series:-that of making together a list of twenty possible judges and selecting three by lot. The difficulty here lies in the cumbersomeness of the mode; those who have tried to select three would look upon the naming of twenty as an appalling task. Although I have never heard of such a method being used, it seems to me that it would be feasible for both sides to select one man together, who can by no possibility have a prefer ence between them, and ask him to choose three judges competent to pass on the question. For instance, if two New England colleges are debating an educational question, they may ask a high school principal in Springfield to make the selection. At any rate, it is essential to eliminate any possibility of personal preference so that the debaters may not work under the depressing fear that their work will not be judged on its own merits. When we have reconstructed our debating societies upon these lines, all that remains for their welfare is to "boost" them enthusiastically. In the Yale-Harvard-Pinceton series, the audiences sometimes number five thousand. In the new series among Eastern women's colleges, the audiences are always over a thousand. On the other hand, at a debate between Williams and Amherst which I attended, there were less than a hundred present. The difference was simply a matter of "boosting." The chief responsibility here too lies with the faculty. If they speak always of debating skill as being equal in value to athletic prowess, if they encourage debating by offering medals and giving credit in English for especially fine debates (as the Springfield Technical High School does) they will aid materially in raising the debating standard. Then in almost all of our high schools,, even where the boys receive the strongest faculty backing, the girls are given scant opportunity to develop their faculty for speaking. As a result, in 1911, only one out of every thousand inter-collegiate debaters was a woman. In a large New England high school, which turns out a team for inter-scholastic debating once a month, the coach told me that a girl was practically never chosen "because girls' voices are too high and trying to the listeners!" Such failings, it seems, can be remedied only by training and must be treated without delay. Our American women never appear to such a disadvantage in comparison with English women as in public speaking. The latter have thorough courses of training in speaking; their voices are full and resonant; they do not make hand gestures as we invariably do; their self-possession is admirable. These qualities we covet for women as well as men, and these qualities we can secure if we manifest intelligent interest in the affairs of girls' debating societies. No one can doubt the advantage of debating training, in later life. The debater is a fair opponent in all matters; he scorns to win by a misunderstanding or a technical error. His reasoning is honest and sound. He has learned the joy of working with others for the sake of an institution. He is master of himself; no quiver of hand or eyelash can betray that he is thinking of himself and not of his purpose in speaking. I sincerely believe that there is no outside activity in school life that is fraught with such great possibilities for the development of the pupil, as debating; and that any attempt to increase the efficiency of the debating society is certain to prove well worth the effort. Morning and Night My soul went forth to battle yester morn Came dark, and pain, and horror of the light! Faith in the Power that taught me how to think! Is found and forged between my God and me. -J. M. COLLINS. Questioning in Geography PROFESSOR ROBERT M. BROWN, RHODE ISLAND NORMAL SCHOOL, T PROVIDENCE, R. I. HERE is no one thing that a teacher can do which will bring greater reward in increased teaching power, than systematically to prepare questions for one or more recitations each day. If the writer could be sure that any group of teachers would try conscientiously to improve in the art of questioning, he would be just as sure that these same teachers would be rated by any impartial critic as superior to those who are willing to trust to inspiration in this most important part of the teacher's work."* The art of questioning in geography is receiving greater attention and is being more widely discussed today than was formerly the case. Yet while theoretically the recognition of the need of better questions has been reached and a wide-spread campaign has begun, actually, the idea is percolating too slowly down through the various officials to the teacher. In geography, the literature dealing with this phase of teaching is growing and from many sources the adoption of proper questioning is urged as an immediate aim. Questioning was threatening to degenerate into a test of reading or remembering and to be used only to learn whether or not an assignment has been covered. Examinations in geography seemed to imply that a knowledge of locations together with an array of facts concerning them was the only object of the study of the subject. The science of questioning is discussed in many books. In general these cover the broad aspects which are applicable to all branches of the curriculum. teacher is warned against a preponderance of fact questions, against the direct question, against the alternative and against the leading or suggestive question and she is told that the questions should be thought-provoking, should stimulate mental activity and should aid the pupils in organizing their experiences. *Strayer. "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process", p. 121. The Strayer* advises teachers to ask themselves the following questions: (a) Were my questions clear and concise? (b) Did they challenge the attention of all members of the class? (c) Did the children need to think, to organize their experience with reference to the problem in hand before they answered? (d) Was the sequence good? (e) Was it possible for every child to answer some of the questions? (f) Did each child have a chance to answer? (g) Did the children ask questions? Assuming that the general idea of good and bad questions has been presented with sufficient emphasis, it may be worth while to discuss now the various types of questions which arise in the geography lessons and to determine their import and their value. There is first of all the type, "What is a lake ?", which demands in the answer a definition more or less complete. The definition, once the only introduction to geography, has been to a great degree discarded because it has failed as a means of constructing an image of the object. Method books in geography take up the issue and present discussions of the value of the definition, but it is sufficient to note at this time that in adult life there is really little use for the definition. If a body of men and women were asked to define mountain, lake, river, pond, hill, bank and so on, there would be considerable hesitation and uncertainty even though it is admitted that every member of the party was familiar with all the objects. On the other hand it is probable that every one of them could use the terms, mountain, lake, river, pond, and so on, with accuracy in conversation so that their knowledge of the objects was sufficient for their needs both in their own thinking and in their expression of thought for others. It is the difference between a purely abstract and concrete knowledge. The home geography idea has displaced the lists of definitions and the dissertation on the world as a whole because it is concrete. If the cue is taken from the needs of adult life, it is safe to say that when the child has learned to use geographic terms as a part of *Opus cit., page 116. "The New Basis of Geography", page 126. Redway. (New York, 1901). |