3.  Urge your classmates to vote for some member of your class for president.  What qualifications should a good class president have?

+Theme CVIII.+—­Select one of the subjects, concerning which you have written an argument; either add persuasion to the argument or intermix them.

(What part of your theme is argument and what part persuasion?  Does the introduction of persuasion affect the order of arrangement?)

+Theme CIX.+—­Select one of the subjects given on page 361 of which you have not yet made use.  Write a theme appealing to both feeling and intellect.

(Are your facts true and pertinent?  Consider the arrangement.)

+Theme CX.+—­Write a letter to a friend who went to work instead of entering the high school.  Urge him to come to the high school.

(What arguments have you made?  To what feelings have you appealed?)

+Theme CXI.+—­Use one of the following as a subject for a persuasive theme:—­

1.  Induce your friends not to play ball on Memorial Day.

2.  Ask permission to be excused from writing your next essay.

3.  Persuade one of your friends to play golf.

4.  Induce your friends not to wear birds on their hats.

5.  Write an address to young children, trying to persuade them not to be cruel to the lower animals.

+202.  Questions of Right and Questions of Expediency.+—­Arguments that aim to convince us of the wisdom of an action are very common.  In our home life and in our social and religious life these questions are always arising.  They may be classified into two kinds:  (1) those which answer the question, Is it right? and (2) those which answer the question, Is it expedient?

The moral element enters into questions of right.  It is always wise for us to do that which is morally right, but sometimes we are in doubt as to what course of action is morally right.  Opinions differ concerning what is right, and for that reason we spend much time in defending our opinions or in trying to make others believe as we do.  In answering such a question honestly, we must lose sight of all advantage or disadvantage to ourselves.  When asked to do something we should at once ask ourselves, Is it right? and when once that is determined one line of action should be clear.

An argument which aims to answer the question, Is it expedient? presupposes that there are at least two lines of action each of which is right.  It aims to prove that one course of action will bring greater advantages than any other.  Taking all classes of people into consideration we shall find that they are arguing more questions of expediency than of any other kind.  Every one is looking for advantages either to himself or to those in whom he is interested.  A question of expediency should never be separated from the question of right.  In determining either our own course of action or that which we attempt to persuade another to follow, we should never forget the presupposition of a question of expediency that either course is right.