ABSTRACT
There are some advantages which debate undoubtedly possess over the system of lecturing: It is more probable that both sides of the question should be fairly stated in open debate than in individual animadversion: misrepresentation is more easily detected, and falsehood more readily exposed*. But the advantages of lecturing are much more numerous and important. The lecturer, generally speaking, can expect no other immediate effect than to fix conviction where it was dubiously entertained, to shake the prejudices hostile to his system, and so far to interest the imagination as to compel a large part, at least, of his auditory to revolve his arguments in their minds till their truth or falsehood shall be rendered evident. He must consider himself, in short, not so much as the reaper who goes into the field to collect the harvest of opinion, as the sower, whose business it is to scatter the feed.
