It is the best that has yet been devised, but any student who is
set to making a brief of one of the examples of argument at the end of
this book will see for himself that there is no one infallible way of
making an argument. Each argument must adapt itself to its occasion and
its audience; and an instructor will be wise to keep himself awake to
this truth by noting divergencies from the model. The rules which are
here set forth and the model which is built on them are serviceable just
so long as they are serviceable, and no longer. Their chief service is
done when they have set up in the minds of students a standard of
effectiveness in singling out and emphasizing the critical issues of a
question.
As to the exercises which should accompany the work in argument my
experience with classes of five to six hundred freshmen leads me to
think that their value to the student can hardly be overestimated. I
will speak here of a few of them.
The exercises in the use of reference books is something that every
student ought to be put through. I found it simple and not too
extravagant of time to take my sections to the library in squads of ten
or a dozen, and show them and let them handle the principal books on the
list. Then on the spot I gave each of them a sheet of theme paper on
which I had written some sort of fact drawn from one of these books, and
told them to look up that fact and report on it.
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