ensible sides, it does not make much difference whether one is
easier to defend than the other: in a debate such a difference might
destroy the usefulness of the subject. Though to some older minds the
abolition of football is a debatable question, before an audience of
undergraduates who had to vote on the merits of the question the subject
would be useless, since the side which had to urge the abolition would
here have an almost impossible task. So in a debate on the "closed
shop," in most workingmen's clubs the negative would be able to
accomplish little, for the other side would be intrenched in the
prejudices and prepossessions of the audience. In political bodies
unevenness of sides is of common occurrence, for a minority must always
defend its doctrines, no matter how overwhelming the vote is certain to
be. In the formal debates of school and college, on the other hand,
where the conditions must be more or less artificial, the first
condition is to choose a question which will give the two sides an even
chance.

A fair test of this evenness of sides is to see whether the public which
is concerned with the question is evenly divided: if about the same
number of men who are acquainted with the subject and are recognized as
fair-minded take opposite sides, the question is probably a good subject
for debate. Even this test, however, may be deceptive, since believing a
policy to be sound and being able to show that it is so are very
different matters. The reasons for introducing the honor system into a
certain school or college are probably easier to state and to support
than the reasons against introducing it; yet the latter may be
unquestionably weighty.

In general, arguments which rest on large and more or less abstract
principles are at a disadvantage as against arguments based on some
immediate and pressing evil or on some obvious expediency. Arguments for
or against a protective tariff on general principles of political
economy are harder to make interesting and, therefore, cogent to the
average audience than are those based on direct practical gains or
losses. This difference in the ease with which the two sides of a
question can be argued must be taken into account in the choice of a
subject.

In the second place, the subject should be so phrased that it will
inevitably produce a "head-on" collision between the two sides. If such
a proposition as "The present city government should be changed" were
chosen