NEW YORK POST ON ATHLETIC REGULATIONS.

The resolutions of the recent inter-collegiate athletic conference have called out a chorus of disapproval from several quarters, and it is evidently more than doubtful whether five colleges can be got to approve them. Harvard and Princeton have adopted them. Brown has refuse. There is no chance that Yale will accept them, and even if Columbia and Wesleyan should, the defection of Yale will make any attempt at union nearly impossible. Whether we call Harvard and Yale universities or only college like the rest, they are so much larges, and their stake in the matter is so much greater, and the competition between them so much keener, that for the success of an inter-collegiate athletic code the support of both is required.

The first resolution is that any "director or instructor in physical exercises or athletic sports" must be appointed by the college and his name announced in the catalogue. There is no objection to this resolution apparently, and we only mention it here, because it emphasizes the fact that the function of physical education is already recognized generally by the colleges.

The second resolution, of course, raises the question what it a "professional," as to which, as many of our readers know, there is a vast body of learning in existence, but as yet no common agreement. Assuming that the word is here used roughly to de note any one who is not undergraduate, but who rows or plays ball as a matter of business, it seems rather hard that a college nine or crew should not have a right to get themselves coached by such a man. The objection mentioned in the resolution is that the crew or nine with a professional coach would have an advantage over crews and nines having no coach; that, therefore, professionals would be employed, if at all, university, and that this would tend to assimilate the "tone" of undergraduates with that of professionals, whose character is often low and whose motive is mainly mercenary. But why? Coaching by professionals cannot of itself make the motive of undergraduates mercenary, and nothing can prevent the motive of undergraduates being the desire to win, if possible. It seems, too, that it is a mistake to suppose that the employment of a professional coach by one college forces its rival to employ a professional. In rowing, the introduction of the "English" stroke was due to the discovery of it at Oxford, and all sort of experiments with professional coaches have failed to induce a belief that for college races any professional stroke can be found that is better.

The sixth resolution, that no game shall take place except upon the home ground of one or other of the competing colleges, is designed to break up the practice of playing match games in large cities, and drawing crowds for the sake of gate money. But are not crowds drawn to Yale and Harvard for gate money? And what are we to say of Columbia, whose consent to these resolutions is asked, which is situated in a large city, and which has no home grounds?

The seventh resolution forbids boat races longer than three miles. The important ground for this is the danger to health from a four-mile race. But if there is any such danger, any college which recognizes it will have to stop four-mile races whether other colleges do or not. If Harvard and Princeton believe that four miles is too long a course, and it can be proved by medical authority, Yale and other colleges will almost certainly have to come to the same conclusion.