In an exhibition argument Saturday night, the University debaters won a unanimous verdict over Bates College at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.
The question under discussion was, "Resolved: That there is more to be feared than hoped for from science." L. F. Davis, B. T. Whitehouse and Ralph Blagden, representing Bates, upheld the negative. F. W. Lorenzen '28, C. E. Wyzanski Jr. '27, and E. M. Rowe '27 represented Harvard.
James A. Tufts '78, Professor of English at Exeter Academy, acted as chairman.
The judges were F. W. Cushwa, Professor of English at Exeter, E. S. W. Kerr, Recorder of the Academy, and Professor Lyman.
First School Exhibition
This contest was the first exhibition debate ever attempted at any preparatory school, and was arranged by the Exeter Graduate Debating Council. The Harvard debaters defeated Bates College in upholding the same side of the question which they defended unsuccessfully against Leland Stanford last week. Bates had previously triumphed over the westerners and the unanimous victory of the University debaters was unexpected.
"Science stagnates the individual," stated Lorenzen in the opening speech for the affirmative. "It impairs his initiative, his judgement. If we continue to stress the importance of science, man will no longer be man, but a psychological creation, clad in the skin of a hairless, limbless, brainless mollusk, with one abnormal ear glued continually to a telephone receiver attached to a storage 'think-tank!"
Mechanical Instincts Grow
Wyzanski brought out the fact that art and music and all the higher accomplishments of man were being changed into mechanical instincts.
"The nevt war will be the cemetery of civilization," concluded Rowe in his speech.
The Bates debaters based their argument on the Bible, quoting "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." They praised the theory of scientific investigation, bringing out the fact that science had cured many diseases and increased the length of man's life.
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