Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of pieces that will appear each Monday. The pieces will endeavour to examine the little-known and unexpected in the history of Boston College, pieces of arcane knowledge of which the average student may not otherwise be aware.
In 1868, Rev. Robert Fulton, S.J., dean of Boston College, surveyed the student body and decided that it was time to bring a treasured Jesuit ideal to BC - eloquentia perfecta, the practice of perfection of argumentation and presentation in debate. It is clear from Fulton's ledger, in which he made notes during the course of his deanship, that he gave a special place to the debating society that would, in 1890, come to bear his name. Among the privileges given to students involved in the society was a dispensation for their own room, in which, as Rev. Charles F. Donovan wrote in his paper "Debate at Boston College: People, Places, Traditions," the students would be allowed, "to recreate … where no other students might be admitted … There is not mention of a special room for any activity except debating. At a time when there seems to have been more rules than privileges, the College made it clear that debating was uniquely privileged."
Rev. Patrick McHugh, S.J., dean from 1920-1936, recorded the daily business of University life in his diary. Donovan writes of this record, "There is no mention of athletic contests and 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."
It is clear that the students at the time took oratory and debate as not only important skills, but a premier aspect of campus life. On Jan. 14, 1920, the student newspaper, not even a year old at the time, wrote, "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 preeminence." Heights style was a little different in those days.
On the ceiling of the room in Gasson built to house the society are six quotations pertaining to the art and practice of oration. The quotation from Cicero's De Oratore says, "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."
Also adorning the walls is a record of all the students who have won the Fulton debating prize since 1890. The places for names run to 2104, anticipating the importance of the society in BC culture well beyond the lifetimes of those who first argued positions on the upper floor of Gasson.
Sources: "Debate at Boston College: People, Places, Traditions," Rev. Charles F. Donovan, SJ. 1991
History of Boston College, Rev. Charles F. Donovan, SJ. Chestnut Hill, MA: The University Press of Boston College, 1990.
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