head with a catch phrase, and makes a fortune. One doctor does everything for his patient but reach the cause of the disease, and the patient dies; another doctor finds the cause, directs all his treatment to removing the cause, and the patient gets well. Politicians spend months in dickering with a dozen questions only superficially connected with the problem of an elastic currency. What endless bills, and speeches, and amendments, and compromises will they not make, while the country moves on to financial panic. A statesman probes to the heart of the matter, and devises an adequate system of Federal Reserve Banks.

A teacher may have high scholarship, earnestness, and character, and yet fail in his work with a given class. There is one obstacle to success: that obstacle is the hidden issue. Until he discovers it and directs his efforts to overcoming it, all his other qualifications are inadequate.

There is no problem, small or great, in all human affairs, which is beyond the scope of this study. "The gifted man is he who sees the essential point, and leaves all the rest aside in surplusage."

ISSUES MAY NOT BE CHOSEN ARBITRARILY

To prove the main issues is to establish the proposition; to disprove them is to overthrow the proposition. If the Introduction appears to be unprejudiced, and to set forth the issues clearly and fully, the audience will agree that any one who succeeds in presenting a preponderance of proof on these issues establishes his case. They cannot rationally withhold from him their verdict. He virtually says to them at the outset, "If I can prove these points, I can prove the proposition." He proceeds with his argument, making it clear along the way that he is doing just what he ought to do, to win. In the end he sums up what he has done, and rightfully expects the verdict.

If, on the other hand, a speaker arbitrarily selects certain

phases of a proposition, without satisfying his audience that he has chosen those phases on which for them the whole proposition hinges, he may accomplish all that he attempts, he may do it well, and yet lose the verdict. For, if he thus launches at once into the body of the argument, neglecting the preliminary analysis of the question, he may leave the audience objecting in the end, "How do we know that you have done all that is necessary to prove the proposition? Have you really taken up the important arguments on the other side? Why have you not dealt with the particular point that seems vital to us?" The objections may be easily answered, or they may have no effective bearing on the question, but if a speaker has failed to anticipate them and clear them away, they are fatal.

These main issues are independent of the will or skill of any individual; they are to be discovered by thorough study of the question, not selected to suit either side. But, in the work of convincing a particular group of persons, the relative importance of the issues to this group determines the selection and the emphasis to be placed upon them.

In preparing intercollegiate debates, men have said: "There are three speakers on the team; therefore we shall divide the question into three parts: one speaker will take the legal aspect, one the economic aspect, and one the moral aspect.” The discovery of the main issues is no such easy matter. Neither is it possible to find a fixed number of issues of equal importance. Frequently one issue outweighs all the others. As an example, take the question whether the United States was justified in breaking diplomatic relations with Germany on account of her submarine warfare. Here the legal aspect overshadows all others. Again, in the question whether religion should be taught in public schools, the practicability of the plan is the paramount issue.

This arbitrary method of selecting issues for a formal team debate, therefore, may involve the following errors: (a) in

venting topics for discussion which are not real issues; (b) ignoring one or more real issues; (c) confusing issues which should be kept distinctly separate, and (d) placing on the issues disproportionate emphasis.

ALL ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES MUST BE CONSIDERED

As issues are points of controversy, they can be found only by placing the arguments held by one side against those held by the other side. Clearly, then, all the issues can be found only by thus contrasting all the arguments of both sides. In this study no relevant matter is too insignificant to deserve attention. A point that is overlooked may turn out to be the very point on which the whole case is won or lost. Without studying his opponents' contentions, a disputant may decide what he would like to prove; he may even discover the issues in which he has the advantage over his opponents; and yet not discover what he must prove.

This is not only the way to find the issues but the way to deserve the confidence of men. Why is the judgment of any person valued? "Because," says Mill, "he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinion and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and on occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every variety of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other

Lincoln's mind “ran back behind facts, principles, and all things, to their origin and first cause, to that point where

1 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, chap. II.

forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop in the street and analyze a machine. He would whittle a thing to a point, and then count the numberless inclined planes and their pitch making the point. . . . Before he could form an idea of anything, before he would express his opinion on a subject, he must know its origin and history in substance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know it inside and outside, upside and downside. . . . He was remorseless in his analysis of facts and principles. When all these exhaustive processes had been gone through with, he could form an idea and express it, but no sooner. He had no faith and no respect for 'say so's,' come though they might from tradition or authority. Thus everything had to run through the crucible and be tested by the fires of his analytic mind."1

"But how am I to find the issues," asks the debater, "when I do not know what my opponent will argue?" The answer is that it does not matter, for purposes of finding the issues, what your opponent may or may not say on the question. The issues are there irrespective of any opponent, and if you find them all, you will not be surprised by any relevant argument your opponent may present. If you have omitted no important contention on either side, the clash of opinion thus revealed will indicate all the main issues.

All the issues can be discovered only by a thorough study of both sides of the whole proposition in all its phases.

This process of resolving a proposition into its essential parts is sometimes called the analysis of the proposition.

STEPS IN ANALYSIS

The introductory work of finding the issues is usually assisted by setting forth a part or all of the following matters:I. The Immediate Cause for Discussion.

II. The Origin and History of the Question.

1 Herndon and Weik, Life of Lincoln, vol. 1, p. 594.

III. The Definition of Terms.

IV. The Restatement of the Question as Defined.

V. The Exclusion of Irrelevant Matter.

VI. The Statement of Admitted Matter. VII. The Main Contentions on the Affirmative contrasted with those on the Negative, and the Main Issues, reached through the Clash of Opinion thus revealed.

In finding the main issues, the order in which these steps should be taken depends on the nature of the question, the time, the audience, the purpose and other attendant circumstances. Moreover, it is sometimes unnecessary to take all these steps even in preparation, and it is seldom necessary to present all in the final argument. But whether or not the occasion demands the careful exposition of this process of discovering the issues, the writer or speaker must, in his own mind, go through this process before he can have a clear grasp of the whole question.

SPECIMEN OF ANALYSIS

The following introduction appears to have been admirable for the debate at Carleton College, in 1915, in which it was used, even though not all the steps in analysis were presented:

The question of the control of the railroads has become a serious and important issue. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, once said that whoever owns the railroads of a country, determines very largely the future of that country, and nowhere is the truth of this statement better exemplified than it is in the United States. Our railroads control over one third of the mileage of the world, their employees number one out of twelve of our adult male population, the capital invested in them is estimated to represent one eighth of the wealth of the country, and their annual revenues are three times as great as those of the Federal Government. A system of such magnitude is capable of wielding a powerful influence, and may dangerously affect the business life of a country unless properly managed. Recognizing the close relation between the transportation lines and