Debating Society [Report]

King Edward’s School Chronicle, Birmingham

N.S., vol. 25, no. 183 (November 1910), pp. 68-71. Unsigned.

[p. 68]

The Society inaugurated a new Session on Friday, October 7 th, with Mr Reynolds in the chair,
by discussing the motion “That this House considers that the Debating Society does more harm than
good.”

Proportionally to the interest and possibilities of the notion the attendance was distressingly
small, since many of those who otherwise, it is to be hoped, would have helped to give the Society a
good “send-off” into a new Session were attracted by interest or necessity to the Swimming Trials.

[p. 69]

After the reading of the minutes and the election of new members the House proceeded to
public business.

The SECRETARY who appropriately opened, hurled as preface a few sentences of abuse at
an unmoved house. Accusing it of callousness he then drifted into a tearful description of the sorrows
of the “sub-porter” and “sub-underporter” who wait wearily outside while the Society debates on.

An affectionate allusion to “one Bogey” having at last touched the House, he concluded with
the accusation that the Society encouraged the growth of punning and after drawing a harrowing
picture of the devastation wrought through this malpractice by members of the Society in Camp at
Aldershot he resumed his seat.

Whereupon V. TROUGHT rose and maliciously perpetrated in quick succession several of

varied viciousness.

He then proceeded to get entangled in an argument concerning “things of beauty.”

It appeared dimly that he was alluding to the Secretary’s speech, but he abandoned this topic
in order to insult the house with such suggestive phrases as “casting pearls before – the House.” Since
the House remained indifferent he resorted to the more congenial topic of Tea. After gloating over the
joys of increased appetite and deferred delight, and painting the advantages of a Debate before every
meal as an appetiser, he uttered the sweeping dictum that “this House keeps its members from the
‘Pubs’,” and retired.

F. DEVIS, who followed, seemed extremely perturbed, since the Secretary, on whom
apparently he had intended he had intended to exhaust his rhetoric, had both spoken on his own side
and used his arguments. Later on the Hon. Member wandered into entanglements in endeavouring to
elaborate an obscure simile in which – to its astonishment – the House was likened to an insect with
17 legs. (Who ever it was that came with only one leg or three that night is not known.)

F. T. FAULCONBRIDGE however was so deeply impressed with the educational and

elevating influence of the Society upon its members in general, and upon the Secretary in particular,
that he aroused the ire of R. Q. GILSON who explained impatiently that his one and only grudge
against the Society was this educational tendency. Everything, he said, was improving and
educational now-a-days. He lived in terror of discovering the educational properties even of bread and
butter.
 R. S. PAYTON then rose and applied his wit for a sentence or two to the Secretary. He soon
retired but only after brutally announcing that he did not intend to apologise for not having made a
speech.

F. SCOPES further pulverised the Affirmative.

When he had subsided in a whirl of references to original sin – red and white jerseys – the law
of averages – and wedding [p. 70] breakfasts, since the motion was now sufficiently lost sight of, the
house was moved to pity by C. L. WISEMAN who rose distorted and inarticulate with internal
merriment. Amid a stream of chokings and inaudibilities the Hon. Member was heard to describe
himself as a “babe clad only in flannelette” – which seemed to the House peculiarly appropriate.
Having described an incoherent vision of a personal type and proposed an amendment which was
rules out of order, he collapsed, and the Hon. Opener replied.

The motion was then put the vote with the result: on the Affirmative 5, on the Negative 15.
The motion was therefore lost.

On Friday, 21st October, a slightly larger house came together to discuss the motion “That this
House advocates State Endowment of the Drama.” Mr Badger having kindly consented to take the
Chair, Mr R. W. REYNOLDS opened, and in a convincing speech ably put forth the arguments for
Endowment. The Drama, which has produced the world’s greatest literature and was capable of
exercising a noble influence on the nation, was in no way flourishing. Good dramatists could not get a
hearing because, in marked contrast to publishers, managers could not afford to risk the production of
good plays above the level of popular taste.

He then touched on the French system, and showed that the cost was not comparatively great.
No great Drama had been produced without endowment, either by the State or by wealthy patrons,
since the mass of the people had always preferred bull-baiting or its equivalents to a good play.

MR C. H. RICHARDS, who then rose to oppose the motion, regretted bitterly the weak
moment in which he had capitulated to the highwaymanism of the Secretary. Practical difficulties, he
said, had been overlooked. Formerly it was the cultivated minority who ruled, but it was by no means
so now. The State Theatre would have to provide “popular plays” for the taxpayer.

Our age was not Dramatic, and it was useless to attempt to produce dramatic genius by
Endowment in an age when public taste was so bad as to desire that costliness of production argued
by the affirmative.

The Hon. Member also objected to taxes and considered Theatre-going a luxury to be payed
for by those only who wanted it.

[p. 71]

G. A. SHELDON (maiden) who made a somewhat too free use of notes, seemed distressed by
the magnitude of the competition which weighs down the drama from circuses, music-halls and such-
like, and which makes it in urgent need of subsidies. Enumerating the advantages and good influences
of the stage he repeated some arguments already propounded and concluded with a long quotation
from Matthew Arnold.

W. H. EHRHARDT, who followed with a good maiden speech, pointed out the fatal tendency
of a National Theatre towards conventionality and the suppression of all originality, instancing in
particular the case of Wagner’s early experiences.
 F. DEVIS then arose glowing with pleasure at the wonderful elevating influence of public
free libraries. He recounted to an incredulous House a memory of childhood in which there figured a
humble cot once daubed with lithographs but now graced with “Turners.” Why not, he said, the same
improvement in dramatic art?

D. G. J. MACSWINEY again pointed out that it was the people and not the Drama who were
to blame. State endowment does not abolish the lower and more popular performance which hold
public taste back.

F. SCOPES pointed out that dramatists and actors such as Sir Henry Irving, who should be in
a position to judge, had advocated State Endowment. At present the Drama bound English-speaking
people together in “a bond of national vulgarity.” This might be altered to a bond of “national good
taste.”

R. Q. GILSON after a flippant remark turned to the motion. He thought a lesson might be got
from the fact that School magazines are infinitely superior when unaided and spontaneous than when
supported. Public taste was not to be artificially changed. “It was stubborn, and History said that it
was not to be shoved but tapped, or else it would turn and rebound upon the Shover.”

V. TROUGHT thought that the only way of working State Endowment would be a
“Committee of Taste,” and this would soon degenerate into a “Committee of Narrow-minded
Pedantry” and

C. L. WISEMAN could not see why a decrepit and played-out old art like the Drama should
be supported in preference to a young and energetic art such as Music.

The Hon. Opener then replied and pointed out that the State-endowed Theatre would have the
enormous advantage – in addition to the disputed one of producing new plays – of providing a place
where good classical plays might be heard by any who wished.

Nevertheless the motion having been put to the House the votes were: on the Affirmative 9,
and on the Negative 14, and the motion was lost.