OCCASIONAL PAPERS 
 ON THE HISTORY OF 
 BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 DEBATE AT 
 BOSTON COLLEGE: 
 PEOPLE, PLACES, 
 TRADITIONS 
 
 Rev. Charles F. Donovan, S.J. 
 University Historian 
 November 1991 
 
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 Ijll 
 
 The year was 1868. In September Boston College 
 admitted its fifth class of students, and the total 
 enrollment, including collegians and high school boys, 
 was 117. The dean, Father Robert Fulton, decided there 
 were enough mature students for the College to establish 
 a debating society. 
 
 Eloquentia perfecta or eloquentia Ciceroniana— 
 perfect or Ciceronian eloquence— was an ideal embodied 
 in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum and practiced in Jesuit 
 colleges since the 16th century, so Father Fulton was 
 not innovating but rather continuing at Boston College 
 a cherished ideal of Jesuit education. The “Minutes of 
 the Debating Society of Boston College” report that on 
 Saturday, November 21, 1868, “At a meeting of the 
 upper classes of Boston College, Rev. Robert Fulton 
 presiding, the constitution of the Debating Society was 
 unanimously adopted.” 
 
 Father Fulton personally assumed the role of director 
 of the new debating society. However, after two years, 
 he was raised to the presidency of the College. During 
 his long service as president (twice), 1870-1880 and 
 1888-1891, Father Fulton— clearly by his own choice- 
 continued to serve as dean as well as president. He 
 undoubtedly found that he could not handle an 
 extracurricular activity along with the twin burdens of 
 administration, but the debating society (later named for 
 him in 1890) had a special place in his priorities. He 
 kept a ledger during his early deanship containing the 
 advice he gave to his teachers as well as rules for the 
 conduct of the school and for the movement and behavior 
 of the students. Some of the rules seem paternalistic 
 
 [ 1 1 
 
today, but it must be remembered the dean was 
 legislating for youths of high school as well as college 
 age. Students were told that playing ball, snowballing, 
 pitching, and all games that endangered the windows 
 were prohibited. Further, no boisterous conduct was 
 allowed in the corridors or classrooms, and even in the 
 gymnasium and during recreation students’ behavior was 
 to be decorous. Recreation was to take place in the 
 gymnasium or the court (the small plot of land in front 
 of the College on Harrison Avenue, between the church 
 and the Jesuit residence). All the rest of the premises 
 were out of bounds except when the dean gave 
 permission to walk by the church or, to members of the 
 Debating Society, to recreate in their own room, where 
 no other students might be admitted. 
 
 The College catalogs in the 1870s and 1880s gave a 
 full page to each of four student activities, listing the 
 moderators, officers, and membership. Always listed 
 first was the Sodality of the Immaculate Conception; 
 second, the St. Cecilia Society (choir); third, the 
 Debating Society; and fourth, the Foster Cadets. There 
 is no mention of a special room for any activity except 
 debating. At a time when there seem to have been more 
 rules than privileges, the College made it clear that 
 debating was uniquely privileged. 
 
 The book of minutes shows that the topic of the first 
 debate held by the new organization was: “Is the art 
 of printing productive of more good than evil?” The 
 topic afforded the gentlemen of the negative side an 
 opportunity to present some imaginative and humorous 
 arguments as advocates of a poor cause. Some of the 
 debate topics reveal that the students were quite 
 conscious of their ethnic and political status. For 
 example, in 1868 they debated “Whether the power of 
 Great Britain is or is not likely to decline?” In 1870 there 
 was a tendentious topic: “Do the later immigrants 
 contribute more to the welfare of America than the 
 descendants of the early settlers?” One wonders how 
 a team was found willing to defend the Yankee position. 
 
 Is there reason to question how committed to or 
 emotionally involved in the Civil War Boston Irish were 
 when only seven years after the war ended Boston 
 College students debated the proposition “That the South 
 had the right to secede.” Later in the century, in 1891 , 
 the topic for the prize debate was “That the 
 
 [ 2 ] 
 
On the front wall, above a seal of the Fulton Debating 
 Society, is a good rendition of the standard photograph 
 of Father Fulton, painted by a gifted Jesuit brother, 
 Francis Schroen. 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation was unwise.” If the debaters 
 seem to have been faced with defending some socially 
 unthinkable propositions, they were no less 
 daring regarding religion, since in 1898 they argued the 
 pros and cons of the proposition “That the Papacy in 
 the middle ages was a beneficent power in European 
 affairs.” 
 
 As late as the catalog for 1889-1890 the Debating 
 Society was described as cultivating extemporaneous 
 debate, dramatic reading, and declamation. The minutes 
 show that brief dramatic pieces were sometimes part of 
 the regular meetings. For example, a notation in October 
 1 87 1 informs us that seven or eight members were given 
 two weeks notice for the presentation of the second act 
 of Macbeth. Father Fulton ended his second term as 
 president of the College early in January 1891 . He was 
 succeeded by Father Edward Devitt. The catalog for 
 1890-1891 , published at the conclusion of the academic 
 
 ( 3 1 
 
year, for the first time listed the “Fulton Debating 
 Society of Boston College” with no description of its 
 purposes, but with the significant bottom-line 
 information: 75 members. On the next page is announced 
 “Boston College Athenaeum” with the subjoinder: 
 “The object of this society is to promote the study of 
 dramatic art and conduct the College plays.” The new 
 organization had 40 members. In a brief history of 
 Boston College that Father Devitt wrote after his 
 presidency ended he noted that in 1890 a student 
 organization called the Boston College Athenaeum was 
 formed “to take over the Thespian chores until then 
 performed by the debating society.” 
 
 The year 1894-1895 was memorable in the history of 
 debate at Boston College because in that year occurred 
 the College’s first intercollegiate debate and the first 
 between two Jesuit colleges— Boston College and 
 Georgetown. 
 
 It is hard, almost a century later, to understand the 
 excitement and the high level of negotiations involved 
 in arranging the debate. Letters went back and forth for 
 months between the two presidents, both of whom were 
 among the most sophisticated to lead their respective 
 colleges in the 19th century: Fathers Timothy Brosnahan 
 of Boston College and J. Havens Richards of 
 Georgetown. The presidents discussed details such as 
 the location of the debate and the choice of judges, and 
 decided to seek the approval of the Provincial for the 
 whole project. Father Brosnahan wrote to the Provincial 
 and reported to Father Richards: “I asked that three boys 
 be allowed to come and promised that they should be 
 given quarters at the College & consequently all 
 appearance of undue liberty to be taken away. They are 
 to come direct from Georgetown to Boston and to return 
 in the same manner. This is important, because if 
 anything should happen to give grounds for complaint, 
 the scheme would end with its beginning.” There were 
 no accommodations for putting up visiting students 
 overnight at Boston College, so obviously the 
 Georgetown men were welcomed to the Jesuit residence, 
 another measure of how important this visit was. 
 
 The much-heralded event took place— after two 
 postponements— on May 1, 1895. Among the 
 
 distinguished guests in a capacity audience in the Boston 
 College Hall that night were the auxiliary bishop of 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
Boston, John Brady, and the vicar-general, Monsignor 
 William Byrne; Father Edward Devitt, former president 
 of Boston College, who accompanied the Georgetown 
 debaters from Washington; and Georgetown’s president, 
 Father Richards, who came from an engagement in 
 Buffalo for the occasion. This first intercollegiate Jesuit 
 debate was considered of such national interest that an 
 account of it was printed in Woodstock Letters, a journal 
 for and about American Jesuits. The Boston College 
 debaters were recorded as Michael J. Splaine (’97), 
 Michael Scanlan (’95), and John J. Kirby (’95). (Splaine 
 and Kirby were later to win the Fulton medal.) The 
 Woodstock Letters account said the Boston debaters 
 brought credit to their alma mater by their able defense 
 of “The Equity of the Income Tax Law as passed by 
 the last Congress,’’ but in a close decision, decided 
 finally by the vote of the chairman, they lost to the young 
 men from the shores of the Potomac. The philosophical 
 Bostonians found consolation in the thought “that victory 
 still remained in the Society [of Jesus]”. 
 
 The next recorded intercollegiate encounter for the 
 Fulton Debating Society was with the Forum of Harvard 
 University in the College Hall on the evening of March 
 24, 1898. As was true of the earliest intercollegiate 
 debates, those between Harvard and Yale in 1892, it was 
 a debate without a decision, on the topic “Resolved: That 
 the adoption of an inheritance tax is advisable.” The 
 Stylus reported that Boston College chose the topic and 
 Harvard chose the affirmative side. Presiding at the event 
 was one of the city’s outstanding lawyers, Thomas J. 
 Gargan, whose widow many years later funded Gargan 
 Hall in Bapst library in her husband’s memory. The 
 Stylus admired the printed program for the historic 
 debate, artistically decorated with the college colors of 
 the rival debaters. How we would love to have that 
 program in our achives and how we lament the short- 
 sightedness of those who deprived us of that pleasure. 
 Incidentally, it is worthy of note that Georgetown and 
 Harvard, the first colleges the Fulton Society met in 
 debate, are, nearly a hundred years later, frequent 
 opponents of the Fulton in tournament debates. 
 
 In the last decade of the 19th century the annual prize 
 debate featured a number of the most distinguished 
 citizens of Greater Boston as judges. In 1890, only a 
 few months before his death, John Boyle O’Reilly, poet 
 
and editor of The Pilot, Boston’s Catholic paper, was 
 a judge. The following year the Hon. Josiah Quincy, 
 a member of the state legislature and Boston’s mayor 
 1895-1899, together with James Jeffrey Roche, 
 successor of O'Reilly as editor of The Pilot and later 
 O’Reilly’s biographer, judged the debate. In 1892 
 Patrick Collins, who had been a member of Congress 
 and became the second Irish Catholic mayor of Boston 
 after the turn of the century, was a judge. 
 
 College presidents did honor to the Fulton Society at 
 its prize debate— Francis Walker of Tufts in 1896, 
 Charles W. Eliot of Harvard in 1897, and Elmer Capen 
 of Tufts in 1898. Eliot’s gracious participation should 
 be noted by Boston College people who tend to think 
 of him in relation to Boston College only in terms of 
 the Eliot-Brosnahan controversy about the college 
 curriculum. 
 
 The fact that the College extended invitations to such 
 eminent gentlemen to participate in the prize debate 
 shows the esteem in which the Jesuits held debating; and 
 the acceptance of the invitations by such men indicates 
 the stature that the young college itself and its debating 
 society had achieved. 
 
 In the early part of the 20th century the big event for 
 Boston College and the Fulton Debating Society was the 
 move to Chestnut Hill, where the college swelled with 
 pride in its magnificent new building and the Fulton men 
 gloried in the special amphitheater built for them. Father 
 Gasson followed the example of Father Fulton in 
 providing the debating society a room of its own — and 
 what a room! The Boston College club of Cambridge 
 made a gift (the amount is unrecorded) specifically for 
 the Fulton room, and all generations of Boston College 
 people are in their debt for their role in creating one of 
 the architectural gems of the campus. The ceiling of the 
 room forms a Gothic arch, reflecting the building’s 
 architecture. The sloping ceilings on either side were, 
 fittingly, adorned with six examples of or tributes to 
 oratory: in Greek by Demosthenes, in Latin by Cicero, 
 in Jerome’s Latin rendition of St. Paul, in Italian by 
 Paolo Segneri, S.J., in French by Louis Bourdaloue, 
 S.J., and by Daniel Webster. Three of the quotations 
 are from secular and three from sacred eloquence. From 
 the vantage of the platform in the Fulton room the 
 quotations from Cicero, Webster, and Demosthenes are 
 
 [6 j 
 
on the left wall and those from Segneri, St. Paul, and 
 Bourdaloue on the right wall. The unknown selector of 
 the quotations has provided generations of Fultonians 
 with gems of eloquence and exhortation. They are called, 
 as aspiring orators, to selfless patriotism, to respect for 
 human dignity, to lofty life goals, to sincerity springing 
 from high intellectual and moral force. Truly these are 
 guidelines that challenge the mind and stir the heart. 
 
 The selection from the great Greek orator 
 Demosthenes is taken from his speech, “On the 
 Crown.” The translation given here is from the Loeb 
 Classical Library. The style is a bit old-fashioned, but 
 that is perhaps appropriate to the time when the Greek 
 was copied on the Fulton wall, with some wrong accents 
 and erroneous letters, by Brother Schroen. Father David 
 Gill, S.J., of the Department of Classical Studies, 
 identified the selections from Demosthenes and Cicero 
 in their respective works. 
 
 But it is not the verbal fluency of the orator, 
 Aeschines, nor the stretch of his voice, that is 
 valuable, but that he should choose the same ends as 
 the bulk of his countrymen, and should hate and love 
 the same persons as his country. For the man who 
 has his soul thus ordered will say everything with 
 loyal intentions; but the man who courts those persons 
 from whom the city anticipates danger to herself, does 
 not ride at the same anchor with the multitude, and 
 consequently has not similar expectations of safety. 
 But, mark you, I have; for I adopted the same 
 interests as my hearers, and have done no isolated 
 or individual act. 
 
 Cicero is represented by some lines from his treatise 
 on the orator, De Oratore, Book I, viii, 32 and 34. Again 
 the translation is from the Loeb Classical Library. 
 
 What function is so kingly, so worthy of the free, 
 so generous, as to bring help to the suppliant, to raise 
 up those that are cast down, to bestow security, to 
 set free from peril, to maintain men in their civil 
 rights? Not to pursue any further instances— wellnigh 
 countless as they are— I will conclude the whole 
 matter in a few words, for my assertion is this: that 
 the wise control of the complete orator is that which 
 
chiefly upholds not only his own dignity, but the 
 safety of countless individuals and of the entire state. 
 Go forward therefore, my young friends, in your 
 present course, and bend your energies to that study 
 which engages you, that so it may be in your power 
 to become a glory to yourselves, a source of service 
 to your friends, and profitable members of the 
 republic. 
 
 The most interesting of the citations from the point 
 of view of writing this paper was that from St. Paul, 
 because it took some literary sleuthing to discover that 
 the selection is composed of thirteen excerpts from six 
 of the Pauline letters. A translation is presented 
 unannotated. The same translation with scriptural 
 references for each separate quotation will be found in 
 the appendix. 
 
 Take strength, my son, from the grace which is ours 
 in Christ Jesus. Stand by what you have learned and 
 what has been entrusted to you, remembering from 
 whom you learned it. Run the great race of faith; take 
 hold of eternal life. Test everything; keep hold of 
 what is good. Turn from the wayward passions of 
 youth. Pursue justice, piety, integrity, love, fortitude, 
 and gentleness. In everything set an example of good 
 conduct: in your teaching, your integrity, your 
 seriousness. Have nothing to do with supersititious 
 myths, mere old wives’ tales; keep yourself in 
 training for piety. While the training of the body 
 brings limited benefit, the benefits of piety are without 
 limit, since it holds out promise not only for this life 
 but also for the life to come. What you say must be 
 in keeping with sound doctrine. Never be harsh with 
 an older man; appeal to him as if he were your father. 
 Treat younger men as brothers. Do not dispute about 
 mere words; it does no good and only ruins those who 
 listen. Be on the alert; stand firm in the faith; be 
 valiant, take courage. Let us never tire of doing good, 
 for if we slacken not our efforts we shall in due time 
 reap our harvest. 
 
 A scripture scholar, Father Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J., 
 Gasson professor at Boston College from 1987 to 1989, 
 says he knows of no precedent for a concatenation of 
 texts such as that from St. Paul in the Fulton room. He 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
concludes, as we must, that some Jesuit on the Boston 
 College faculty culled sentences from various passages 
 of St. Paul, which fit together rather nicely, and 
 described the new text correctly in the line below the 
 inscription, “From the letters of St. Paul.” 
 
 Paolo Segneri of the Society of Jesus is one of the great 
 pulpit orators in the history of Italy. He flourished in 
 the second half of the seventeenth century. The citation 
 on the wall of the Fulton room is taken from his fourth 
 sermon for the first Sunday in Lent. Thanks are given 
 to Joseph Figurito of the Department of Romance 
 Languages and to Father Patrick Ryan, S.J., of the 
 Department of Theology for the translation from the 
 Italian. 
 
 What food is for the body, the word of God is for 
 the soul. “Cibus mentis est sermo Dei,” says a 
 disciple of Ambrose, and the common language of 
 the saints echoes him. Nor is this surprising. The 
 word of God preserves in the soul the spark of life 
 so that it be not extinguished. It nourishes the soul 
 when exhausted, strengthens it when weak, makesit 
 robust when spent. Indeed this food has a wonderful 
 advantage over every other kind of food. For every 
 other food, however choice, however healthful, 
 however substantial, can do nothing for our bodies 
 unless they are alive. But the divine word calls back 
 to life souls that are dead. So which of you would 
 be surprised to hear that Christ affirmed that man does 
 not live by bread alone but by every word that comes 
 from the mouth of God? It can be said, not just 
 metaphorically but really, that when the soul, the 
 noblest part of man, is nourished by the word of God, 
 the whole person is nourished by it. 
 
 Like Paolo Segneri, Louis Bourdaloue was a 
 seventeenth century Jesuit and a premier pulpit orator. 
 His reputation in France was perhaps ever greater than 
 Segneri ’s in Italy. Whoever chose the selections from 
 these two talented men again chose a lenten sermon. The 
 Bourdaloue excerpt is from a sermon for the Second 
 Sunday in Lent entitled, “On the wisdom and sweetness 
 of God’s law.” Father Joseph Gauthier, S.J., of the 
 Department of Romance Languages, kindly provided the 
 translation. 
 
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 [ 10 ] 
 
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God’s law is at once a yoke and a comfort, a burden 
 and a support. Didn't this law of love change shackles 
 into bonds of honor? Witness a Saint Paul. Didn’t 
 it make the cross attractive? Witness a Saint Andrew. 
 Didn't it give refreshing coolness in the midst of 
 flames? Witness a Saint Lawrence. Doesn’t it 
 continue to perform countless miracles before our 
 very eyes? If the law seems difficult to you, don’t 
 put the blame on the law or its burdens but on yourself 
 and your indifference towards God. The law is 
 difficult for those who fear it, for those who would 
 like to change it, for those whom the spirit of God, 
 the spirit of grace, the spirit of love doesn’t quicken, 
 doesn’t embolden, doesn't touch because they don't 
 want to be touched. But let us take heart and with 
 a holy desire to please God let us enter into the way 
 of His commandments. We will stride, we will run, 
 we will enjoy the blessed eternity to which we are 
 being led. 
 
 The quotation from Daniel Webster is from a 
 discourse, “Adams and Jefferson,’’ delivered in Faneuil 
 Hall, Boston on August 2, 1826. The two former 
 presidents and friends died on the same day, the 50th 
 anniversary of the republic, July 4, 1826. In the chosen 
 excerpt Webster was speaking of the quality of John 
 Adams’ eloquence. Let Webster’s words introduce the 
 passage on the Fulton room wall: “The eloquence of 
 Mr. Adams resembled his general character, and formed 
 indeed a part of it. It was bold, manly, and energetic; 
 and such the crisis required.’’ He then continued: 
 
 When public bodies are to be addressed on 
 momentous occasions, when great interests are at 
 stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable 
 in speech farther than as it is connected with high 
 intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, 
 and earnestness are the qualities which produce 
 conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist 
 in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and 
 learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. 
 Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, 
 but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, 
 in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, 
 intense expression, and pomp of declamation, all may 
 aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
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 spontaneous, original, native force. 
 
 The representations of the six authors above their 
 quotations on the side walls, as well as all the lettering 
 in the Fulton room, are the work of Brother Francis 
 Schroen. On the front wall the artist, painting in 1913 
 and with a long view of the Fulton’s future, provided 
 a slot for the name of each year’s winner of the Fulton 
 prize debate, starting with 1890 and going as far as the 
 year 2104. 
 
 The Fulton room seats 104. The size of the room 
 deserves comment. Since the 1960s the Fulton Society 
 has been, as regards debating, an activity of a small 
 number of intercollegiate debaters. From 1868 to the 
 post-World War II era, the Fulton was a club of 40, 50, 
 or 60 upperclassmen— juniors and seniors— 
 participating in weekly debates. From this membership 
 
 113 ] 
 
6 or 8 were chosen for intercollegiate debates. Many 
 Fultonians who never represented the College in 
 intercollegiate debate profited from the give and take 
 of the weekly debates and later starred in professional 
 fields where public speaking was important. If the topic 
 of a weekly debate was especially provocative many non- 
 Fultonians might attend, hence the need for ample 
 seating. 
 
 However, having their spanking new quarters in 
 Gasson Hall did not insure excellence in debating by the 
 Fultonians, because on January 14, 1920, the student 
 paper stated, rather pontifically: “ The Heights would 
 be false to its manifest duty did it fail to direct the 
 attention of the college to the present condition of 
 debating within its walls— did it fail to demand, for the 
 sake of those ancient traditions, of those in whose power 
 it lies, that they spare no effort to bring our leading 
 society, the Fulton, back to the level of its former pre- 
 eminence.” 
 
 One cannot measure the influence of The Heights’ 
 admonition upon the subsequent performance of the 
 Fultonians, but it is surely a fact that the next two 
 decades, from 1920 to World War II, were a golden era 
 for the debating society, and this in part reflected the 
 general strength of college debating at the time. A sort 
 of old world civility and formality was part of the 
 debating scene. For instance it was taken for granted 
 that for major encounters like Boston College debates 
 with Holy Cross, Harvard, or Oxford and at all prize 
 debates all parties involved, debaters and judges and 
 masters of ceremonies, would be in formal attire. 
 Intercollegiate debates drew large audiences. A Boston 
 College-Harvard debate in the late 1920s filled 
 Symphony Hall. When Boston College was host team, 
 the Holy Cross debate was held at the old Newton High 
 School, where the auditorium held a thousand. 
 
 The prestige of the Fulton Society at this time is 
 attested to in the dean’s diary that was kept from 1914 
 to 1939. For most of that period, 1920-1936, the dean 
 was Father Patrick McHugh, who was warmly regarded 
 by students and alumni. Most of the diary entries 
 recorded routine business such as the appointing of a 
 substitute for an absent professor, the transfer of a Jesuit 
 professor to another assignment, or the hiring of a lay 
 professor. There is no mention of athletic contests and 
 
 [14J 
 
hardly a mention of any other student activity. But year 
 after year seemingly the entire intercollegiate debate 
 schedule of the Fulton was recorded as the debates 
 occurred. Here are some typical entries: 
 
 November 2, 1928— Intercollegiate debate between 
 Fulton and Oxford University at Ford Hall. Won by 
 Fulton. 
 
 February 3, 1929— International debate with the 
 University of Australia. Good crowd. Won by Fulton. 
 March 27, 1929— Intercollegiate debate between 
 Fulton and Harvard at Symphony Hall. 1500 present. 
 Won by Fulton. 
 
 October 26, 1932— Debate with Oxford at the Hotel 
 Commander in Cambridge— ballroom overflowing. 
 Splendid debate. Won by Fulton. 
 
 March 13, 1933— Fulton vs. Harvard. 600 present. 
 Won by Fulton. 
 
 March 16, 1933— Fulton vs. Providence College in 
 Milford. 500 present. Won by Fulton. 
 
 Defeats, of course, were noted. They were few and 
 usually to another Jesuit college, especially Holy Cross 
 and Fordham, which also fielded formidable debating 
 teams in this era. 
 
 After World War II intercollegiate debating was 
 transformed radically. In place of debates between teams 
 from two colleges, debate tournaments emerged, 
 bringing together teams from a number of colleges 
 engaged over several days in a round robin of contests. 
 A by-product of the debate tourney was the establishment 
 each year of a national collegiate debate topic; all debates 
 at a given tourney were on that topic and all tourneys 
 around the country, leading up to the National Debate 
 Tournament in the spring, debated the same national 
 topic. 
 
 In the prewar period the Fulton had nine or ten 
 intercollegiate debates a year, usually on seven or eight 
 different topics. The four or five leading debaters, who 
 met the most formidable opponents, may have had as 
 many as four or five different debate topics to research 
 and for which to develop debate strategy. The prewar 
 debaters obviously could not achieve the kind of 
 command of five debate topics that contemporary 
 debaters do for the one annual topic. But there was 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
challenge and diversity in preparing multiple debate 
 topics each year that is absent under the tournament 
 format. There has also been a significant change in 
 debate style. In the earlier period the debater stood on 
 the platform with no podium between him and the 
 audience. There was no podium because debaters made 
 their main presentations without notes, speaking either 
 extemporaneously or from memory. A card or two might 
 be held in the hand during rebuttal. The tournament style 
 is to come to the podium with an array of documents 
 and notes for main speeches as well as rebuttals, and 
 rebuttal and cross-examination are merged with the main 
 speeches as the debate progresses. The earlier style was 
 platform speaking, where argument blended with 
 oratory. The tournament presentation is more of a 
 courtroom style, stressing argumentation rather than 
 eloquence. 
 
 Mention should be made of the faculty direction of 
 the debating society. Father Fulton, who founded debate 
 at Boston College in 1868, was the first moderator. In 
 the first half of the twentieth century the moderator 
 usually served a brief term. Between 1910 and 1955 
 twenty-eight Jesuits served as moderator, sixteen of them 
 scholastics (that is, unordained Jesuits doing several 
 years of collegiate teaching before entering theological 
 studies). Among the scholastics were several who 
 became outstanding professors and administrators, such 
 as Ignatius Cox, who was later one of Fordham 
 University’s outstanding professors of ethics; William 
 Kenealy, later dean of the Boston College Law School; 
 Leo P. OKeefe of the Boston College community, who 
 won the Fulton medal in 1929; and Walter McGuinn, 
 founder of the Graduate School of Social Work. 
 
 Professor John L. Mahoney of the English department 
 was the first layman to direct the Fulton Society, from 
 1955 through 1959. He led the Fulton during an era of 
 transition. There were still some debates with 
 representatives of one other college — for example, 
 Boston University. But Boston College began to 
 participate in tournament debates involving teams from 
 colleges in the region, including Holy Cross. 
 
 The appointment in 1960 of John Henry Lawton, 
 whose doctorate from the University of Iowa was in 
 speech and communication, marked the beginning of an 
 era in which the mentor of the Fulton Society no longer 
 
 [ 16 ] 
 
directed debate as an extracurricular activity but as his 
 principal commitment or as a major part of his faculty 
 assignment. The faculty title was changed from 
 moderator of debating to director of forensics. John 
 Lawton began the era of the careerist in charge of 
 debating. He stepped aside in 1968 to pursue other kinds 
 of collegiate public speaking which were then not under 
 the aegis of the Fulton Debating Society. Another 
 professional, Daniel Rohrer, took over the Fulton for 
 twelve years. 
 
 Dr. Lawton plunged Fulton debaters into the national 
 tournament circuit. Travel funds for attending 
 tournaments were not liberal in the 1960s, but he 
 managed to have his debaters at many of the most 
 prestigious tourneys. In 1962 he had the first Boston 
 College team qualify for the Super Bowl of debating, 
 the National Debate Tournament. Between 1962 and 
 1991 Fulton debaters earned a place in the National 
 Debate Tournament eighteen times. 
 
 The present director, who came to Boston College in 
 1985, is Dale Herbeck. He has been entering teams at 
 three levels in debate tourneys— varsity, junior varsity, 
 and novice debaters— and in 1991-1992 he is fielding 
 nine teams. In addition, since the 1970s the Fulton has 
 also developed contestants for non-debate speaking 
 performance, some of the categories being informative 
 speaking, persuasive speaking, extemporaneous 
 speaking, after-dinner speaking, dramatic interpretation, 
 and rhetorical criticism. Fultonians have been regularly 
 participating in speech tournaments which are 
 independent of debate tourneys. In a sense this 
 diversification of the Fulton’s activities goes back to the 
 1868-1890 period, when drama and dramatic readings 
 were part of the debating society’s activities. The 
 consistently impressive record of Fulton debaters for the 
 last quarter of a century reached a climax in 1991 , when 
 the National Debate Tourney ranked Boston College first 
 among the more than 100 colleges active in policy 
 debate. 
 
 The list of ninety-six Fulton Medal Winners on the 
 wall of the Fulton room contains the names of many 
 great and some legendary Boston College graduates. 
 Some standouts are Monsignor Michael J. Splaine, 
 1896, a revered churchman; Henry Foley, 1921, 
 founder of a distinguished Boston law firm; James M. 
 
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 Curley, Jr., 1928, son of Boston’s mayor, whose 
 prospects for a brilliant public career were cut short by 
 an early death; John J. Wright, 1931, later bishop and 
 cardinal, possibly the quickest and wittiest debater in 
 Fulton history; Lawrence J. Riley, 1936, a beloved 
 auxiliary bishop of Boston; John J. Curtin, Jr., 1954, 
 first Boston College alumnus and Law School alumnus 
 to be president of the American Bar Association. 
 
 In the tournament debate format two of the outstanding 
 medalists were contemporaries and teammates, James 
 Unger, 1963, and Joseph T. McLaughlin, 1964 and 
 1965. Unger, who rivalled John Wright’s intimidating 
 intellectual command, has had a distinguished career in 
 the field of intercollegiate forensics. McLaughlin 
 brought his platform skills to the New York bar. The 
 first woman to win the Fulton medal was Jane M. 
 Osborne, 1973, an outstanding accomplishment in the 
 light of the fact that total coeducation had come to Boston 
 College just three years earlier. Osborne took her law 
 degree at Boston College and practices law in California. 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
The almost frenetic pace of today’s Fultonians is seen 
 in the 1991-1992 schedule, which includes 28 
 tournaments: 13 for varsity, 9 for junior varsity, 8 for 
 novice debaters, and 9 for speech. Since each debater 
 may be in five or six debates per tournament, most 
 debaters will have as many as 65 debates from 
 September to April. The busiest debaters might have 
 over 80 debates. Tournament locations include the states 
 of Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Georgia, 
 and North Carolina, as well as a number in the 
 Northeast. Not only does the University finance the 
 considerable travel expenses involved in such a schedule, 
 but it supports the young speakers with a staff of seven 
 full-time and part-time professionals: director of 
 forensics, director of debate (John Katsulas), director 
 of individual events, and four assistant coaches. The 
 ideal of eloquentia perfecta that motivated early Jesuit 
 education is being pursued in 1991. Competitive 
 debating and speaking is sponsored by some of 
 America’s finest colleges. Boston College has seen to 
 it that the Fulton Debating Society is one of the highly 
 respected debate and speech organizations in the country. 
 
Appendix 
 
 The following paragraph gives the scriptural sources of 
 the various sentences that make up the citation from St. 
 Paul’s letters. 
 
 Take strength, my son, from the grace which is ours 
 in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim 2:1) Stand by what you have 
 learned and what has been entrusted to you, 
 remembering from whom you learned it. (2 Tim 
 3:14) Run the great race of faith; take hold of eternal 
 life. ( 1 Tim 6:12) Test everything; keep hold of what 
 is good. (1 Th 5:21) Turn from the wayward passions 
 of youth. (2 Tim 2:22) Pursue justice, piety, integrity, 
 love, fortitude, and gentleness. (1 Tim 6:11) In 
 everything set an example of good conduct: in your 
 teaching, your integrity, your seriousness. (Titus 
 2:6,7) Have nothing to do with superstitious myths, 
 mere old wives’ tales; keep yourself in training for 
 piety. While the training of the body brings limited 
 benefit, the benefits of piety are without limit, since 
 it holds out promise not only for this life but also for 
 the life to come. (1 Tim 4:7,8) What you say must 
 be in keeping with sound doctrine. (Titus 2: 1) Never 
 be harsh with an older man; appeal to him as if he 
 were your father. Treat younger men as brothers. (1 
 Tim 5:1) Do not dispute about mere words; it does 
 no good and only ruins those who listen. (2 Tim 2: 14) 
 Be on the alert; stand firm in the faith; be valiant, 
 take courage. (1 Cor 16:13) Let us never tire of doing 
 good, for if we slacken not our efforts we shall in 
 due time reap our harvest. (Gal 6:9) 
 
 Photographs by Gary Gilbert 
 Boston College Office of Communications 
 
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