University of Virginia Library

DEBATING SOCIETIES.

One of the most pernicious mischiefs of the present
times, and one most pregnant with the seeds of
individual discomfort and general unhappiness, is
the rapid increase of Debating Societies; or, rather,
societies for the annoyance of the community
—night-schools for the education of youth in flippancy
and sophistry—seminaries for the full developement
of the organ of self-sufficiency—arenas
for the exposure of the weakness of the human
intellect, and the depreciation of heaven's creatures
in the opinion of all considerate people. These
excrescences are springing into existence on every
side, and are productive of the most lamentable consequences.
When I see (as I have seen) a meek,
diffident juvenile of eighteen or nineteen, of the right
age to imbibe wholesome, quiet wisdom and nutritious
instruction—seduced from his darling books,
and peaceful solitary chamber, to attend one of those

pestiferous places, where, what they call “questions,”
are regularly discussed; when I see such an
one led on, step by step, by a little empty applause,
to exchange the modest diffidence that would gladly
learn, for the misplaced confidence that would
boldly teach, until he becomes, in the course of
time, a confirmed, hardened debater, lost to all sense
of shame and idea of propriety—a perpetual torment
to his more immediate relatives and connections,
and an unceasing nuisance to all the other
members of the great human family with whom he
may be brought into juxtaposition, I confess I cannot
but feel a strong distaste for those reprehensible
nurseries for bad speeches and worse arguments.

Reader! didst thou ever misspend a few hours at
a debating society? If so, then hast thou seen
“pitiful ambition” in all its infinite varieties, and
almost every stage and degree of folly, froth, and
fatuity. How didst thou preserve thy serenity?
Thou mightst have looked, indeed, with calm, contemplative
benevolence on some piece of leadenheaded
ignorance, who, after a week's cogitation,
gravely and seriously set about building up a reputation
by announcing that “virtue was its own
and best reward,” “vice eventually its own punishment,”
and other similar originalities; but there is
a species of reptile to be met with in those congregations

of raw intellects, that is, to me at least,
peculiarly and distressingly repulsive. It is generally
in the shape of a good-looking, smooth-faced,
self-sufficient, young gentleman, the leader, the
looked-up-to of the society, one skilled in quibbles,
quotations, and paradoxes; who thinks truth beneath
his advocacy, and makes a point of taking
what is called the “difficult side of the question,”
in order to show off his surplusage of uncommon
qualities, by confuting his humble satellites, who
ingloriously content themselves with a homely,
obvious view of the matter in dispute. I am not
naturally blood-thirsty; but still, when I have seen
an unwholesome piece of mortality of this kind get
up, all smirk, amiability, politeness, and complacency,
to refute, in the most urbane manner, some
truism lineally descended from Shem, Ham, or
Japhet, or, it may be, antediluvian, I confess I have
felt the destructive principle rising within me—I
have acknowledged my consanguinity to Cain—I
have—but no man is bound to be his own accuser.
“Our worser thoughts heaven mend.”

Yet there are people who contend that these dens
for the dislocation of grammar, for the maltreatment
of metaphors, and the ill-usage of all tropes and
figures whatsoever, these very debating societies,
are not only perfectly innocuous, but positively beneficial;

that they sharpen the tongues and faculties
of young men; that they accustom them to view
matters dispassionately, and examine both sides of
a subject; that they keep them, in some degree,
from theatres, taverns, billiard-tables, and other immortalities;
and that, moreover, they are a sort of
preparatory schools, wherein incipient legislators
may perfect themselves in declamation, mystification,
equivocation, and other indispensable requisites
for wordy war in after life. Oh misjudging fathers
of families! Is it more pernicious, think you, for
your offspring to injure the coats of their stomachs
by quaffing tumblers of brandy punch at a tavern,
than to sully their immortal minds by nightly
draughts of quibbles and sophistry? Is it worse to
play a straight hazard at a billard table, than to
learn habitually to undervalue truth, treating her
like a play-thing—a shuttlecock—to be bandied to
and fro as suits their convenience? Is it worse for
them to sit in a theatre and hear the divine poetry
of Shakspeare appropriately recited, than to be listening
to the dull speculations, or inflated bombast
of raw juveniles; or worse than that, perchance,
being themselves actively engaged in damaging the
English language, their vernacular, their respected
maternal or mother tongue? Is the quarrel scene
between Brutus and Cassius less to the purpose
than a fiery altercation between Master Cicero Timkins
and Master Demosthenes Simkins? Answer.

“But are these things so?” exclaims some unsuspecting,
kind-hearted father, or some amiable mother,
aroused, for the first time, to a sense of the danger
of her darling child, who has recently joined one
of those associations, and in whom she has latterly
remarked, with sorrow of heart, unequivocal symptoms
of obtrusiveness in company, and a rapid development
of the organs of obstinacy and self-will.
Trust me, dear madam, they are, and must of
necessity be so. I am not trifling with you. I am
no giddy boy, writing for a thimble-full of local
notoriety, but am myself a parent (of some six
weeks standing); and though of the more obtuse
(where feeling is concerned) or masculine gender,
know how to enter into a fond mother's fears on
such an occasion. Trust me, where one boy is
benefited by such societies, hundreds are injured
in their intellects, their morals, or their tempers.
Where one over-bashful youth is inoculated with
a little becoming self-possession, hundreds acquire a
degree of audacity, repulsive even in those who
have arrived at whiskers, but perfectly shocking in
persons of tender years; who, by the yet unstiffened
down upon their cheeks and chins, are reasonably
expected to be patterns of meekness and acquiescence.

But this is only a portion of the evils produced
by such unwholesome hotbeds for the forcing of
the intellect. The other natural consequences are
overweening pride, inflated notions of self, together
with contradictious, acrimonious, disputative habits,
which irresistibly prompt the unhappy possessors to
injure their friends, neighbors and acquaintance, by
committing, as it were, moral assaults upon them;
waylaying and deluding them, unawares, into out-of-the-way
controversies, knocking them down with
arguments or quotations, and then rifling them of
their quietude and peace of mind, and otherwise
maltreating and abusing them. Is such conduct
commendable? Is it decent? My dear madam, if
you would not have your son become a piece of unmixed
impertinence—an unamiability—a flatulency—an
after-dinner annoyance and a tea-table curse,
keep him away from debating societies.

After this affecting appeal, I think I see you turn
to your first-born, and, with tears in your eyes, exclaim—

“Oh, Ralph Nicholas, my love, go no more to
that place—it will not, and it cannot come to good.”

Madam, hand this lucubration across the table to
him, and conviction will stare him in the face; he
will yet be saved; and in the words of some great
moralist, “I will not have written altogether in vain.”

“But to take,” as the newspapers say, “a more
enlarged and comprehensive view of the subject.”
These abominations are spreading themselves with
awful rapidity over every section of the country.
In cities they abound, and are of every degree, from
bad to execrable. But worse than this: even in
the most (apparently) calm and sequestered villages
—sanctuaries for retirement and contemplation and
solemn thoughts—the demon of debate has established
a president's chair; and the propounding
and discussion of questions are carried on by the
rustics with a vigor and pertinacity that argue any
thing but well for the peace and quiet of the neighborhood.
Really, unless some remedial measures
be adopted, habitual disputation may become general,
and no man be safe. But what chiefly
alarms me, who partly believe in the transmission
of peculiar qualities of mind, as well as body, from
generation to generation, is, that this disease—this
moral blotch of wrangling and debating, becomes
rooted in the system; that what in our children is
only an acquired habit, may, in their children, and
their children's children, be a natural propensity!
I will be gathered to my fathers long ere that, and
therefore, cannot be supposed to be influenced by
any personal feeling in speaking thus; but, good
heavens! should it become hereditary! Then, indeed,

may the peaceable and well-disposed of afteryears—those
who have escaped the taint—be emphatically
said to have “fallen on evil days,” and
then will they exclaim, in the agony of their outraged
quiet,
But, perhaps, I am mournfully anticipative. Providence
grant it may be so. But no means should
be left untried to check the evil.

I will apostrophize; perchance it may act as a
dissuasive.

Oh, tender, callow youth, of sixteen and upwards,
listen! A voice from the olden time, even that of
the wisest among men, calleth unto thee—“my
son, get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding;”
and that thou may'st do so, discountenance
those talking, turbulent, truculent associations
for the effusion of the froth and scum of
oratory; eschew hot and bitter disputation—seek
not for truth amid wrangles, and quibbles, and disingenuous
paradoxes—consort not with such as
deal in them; but hie thee to thy silent chamber
and choose thy companions from the immortals,
from the demigods of thy “land's language.” Look
now, in this small room, what a goodly company
hast thou assembled around thee. What a congregation

of wits, sages, poets, and philosophers; and
all willing to be known to thy poor self. Insignificant
as thou art, how familiar may'st thou be with
Shakspeare, if it so please thee! John Milton will
not refuse thy acquaintance. Here is Swift, too,
divested of his rudeness; and Pope of his pettishness;
and “glorious John;” and Ben Jonson and
Sam Johnson, who take no offence whatever at the
unceremonious abbreviation of their baptismal cognomens.
If you wish to laugh, here are Butler
and Smollett, two right pleasant fellows, who will
speedily furnish you with an occasion; if you are
more attuned unto the “melting mood,” here are
Gray and Collins similarly disposed; and if you
are so unreasonable as to desire to laugh and cry
in the same breath, you can be accommodated, for
here is Laurence Sterne; and here, too, are witty
Farquhar, and wittier Congreve; and kindly-hearted
Oliver Goldsmith; and meek, melancholius
Cowper; and blithe, honest, ill-used Robie Burns;
and I know not how many more true-hearted,
sound-headed fellows, “merry and wise,” such as
the “antique Roman” or the Greek, or all that lived
before the days of “good Queen Bess,” never had
the honor of keeping company with. If you are
ambitious of an acquaintance with the leading literary
characters of your own times, here are Scott
Rogers, Campbell, Moore, &c. ready to waive the
ceremony of a formal introduction in your favor.

Are all these advantages—these opportunities of
“keeping the best of company,” to be lightly slighted?
Neglect them, and you will walk through the
world an idealess biped; cultivate them, and when
you go forth amid the mass of mortals, you will
see with eyes that they see not with, and hear with
ears that they hear not with; and, whether in the
crowded city or the solitary plain, the glittering ballroom
or the smoky cabin; amid the tumult of society
or the silence of nature, you will, at all times,
and on all occasions, have it in your power to reap