About College Athletics.

As the following article is sure to be of interest to all college men, we insert it in its entirety. It is taken from the Hartford Courant of Nov. 28th:

"It seems clear that athletics are likely to remain an important element in the education, etc., of our universities. This or that branch of contest may be modified or even abandoned. Foot-ball may be so qualified that in no possible event can personal in jury to an opponent be made an advantage. It may even be decided that the boat races are on the whole too expensive-offering no opportunity for pecuniary return from the spectators-and too exacting of the crew, by their over-long course of training, and by excluding them from the festivities and graduation events of commencement week, and too certain to be of a purely processional character, to justify their continuance. They were the pioneer contests, but the other, and, perhaps, better ones have succeeded them.

"But the fact remains that there will be inter-collegiate contests of physical skill and strength. This conclusion is practically demonstrated, not only by the zeal in this behoof of undergraduates and sub freshmen, but by the enthusiasm of graduates and the intense interest which the public take in the affairs. Take the recent game between the two leading foot-ball teams. The New York papers say that the polo grounds never held so many or so wildly enthusiastic spectators; the return of the victors through the avenue on a coach called out the flutter of banners and choruses of cheers from the windows and balconies and pavements, and the newspaper press sent out a half dozen extras to announce the result. And when we consider the character of the attendants upon the game, it is certainly suggestive of its immense power over the people-and the people who both make and reflect public opinion.

With those premises we cesire to submit that the future of athletics at Harvard and Yale will be best assured if hereafter all championships and matches, in which they engage, are confined to the representatives of these two leading universities. Many friends of these contests in both universities have been hoping for a time when such a result could be properly accomplished, without exposing one or the other college to the charge of escaping from a superior. Two years ago a race was lost at New London to Columbia. The defeat was retrieved last year. Since the old fifteen-men foot-ball was abandoned, in which Harvard had been fairly successful, and the adoption in 1882 of the present American game, Harvard, until the present season, has not put forth her energies to the fullest extent on the foot-ball field. In spite of this fact, she has this season sent out a team that put Yale, who in the last six years had lost but a single game and that by a score of six to five, to her very sharpest effort to retain her supremacy. And it may be assumed that Harvard has come back to the foot-ball grounds to stay, and that means an even contest, with victory to the team that has been best trained and best coached. In other branches of athletics the two universities have almost held first and second place for many years. Thus in base ball, in track athletics and in tennis. So we see that now the position of Yale and Harvard, in all branches of inter-collegiate athletics (excepting for second place in tennis), is first and second, and that the time is opportune to make the change suggested. It may be said with force that tennis is a game of individuals rather than of a team, and that the same is partially true of track athletics. If these two were to remain as they are, it would not seriously interfere with the ideas of this article.

"What are the advantages some one asks. Many will at once come to mind. First, it will bring the whole matter into easy adjustment to the studies and recitations. It will eliminate a large part of the absences from college. It will dimish opportunities for abuse, brutality, and off-color conduct of all kind; for it is absolutely impossible for any of these things to stand before the traditions or in the atmosphere of Yale or Harvard, where the contests and responsibilities are confined to themselves. It may even save the contests from abolition by keeping their numbers within bounds.

The undergraduate managers of contests with the assistance of advisers from graduates and representatives of the faculties could easily fix upon occasions so at least to interfere with examinations, etc., and best prove interesting and attractive to the friends of the universities.

"Some one objects that it will seem to indicate a kind of contempt of the smaller colleges. Not in the least. Games can be played with them which are not matches, and the practice which they would get at New Haven and Cambridge would be desirable. It will be better for the smaller colleges. Take the experience of Weyleyan at foot-ball, for instance. That plucky college has made an earnest and enthusiastic effort to win at foot-ball. Its boys have labored just as conscientiously as those of Yale and Harvard, but they are beaten simply by the limitations of their numbers, and their field, and the absence of large support. They have accomplished all they hoped to in defeating Pennsylvania, and their leaders are already talking of withdrawing from a league where they can never win first place. The history of inter-collegiate boat racing shows that in the end the great universities had better confine their challenges to each other. It is only a short time ago when ten boats were contending against each other.

"Another objector says the clubs will not be so skillful as they are now. If they were not it would not take away the pleasure of the contests. But the contrary view is probably the true one. The resources of Harvard and Yale to make first class opposition for practice of their representatives are shown all the time. An expert observer informed the writer that the "college" team which met Yale university in daily practice could easily overcome all foot-ball associations in the country excepting the three leaders. The same is probably true of the Harvard "college" team. At tennis last fall it is said that the Harvard tournament was scarcely at all inferior to the inter-collegiate affair. And in base-ball both universities can and do raise very skillful second nines. But besides, with their resources of large classes and departments, Harvard and Yale can not only equip their representatives for business, but they can enlarge the true blessings of sport, by making it more general and by bringing in many men of feeble physical mould, who need just the experience of the athletic field to fit them for usefulness. Of course practice games for instruction can be had with professionals.

"By this plan, besides a possible international contest now and then with Oxford or Cambridge, there would be quite enough to satisfy the claims of athletics. Thus there will remain, say four games of base-ball-two at Cambridge and two at New Haven, and a fifth on neutral ground if necessary; the race at New London; the foot-ball game at the polo grounds, and, if thought best, one in Jarvis field and one on Yale athletic grounds; in addition, track athlects and tennis at New Haven and Cambridge, one at each place and alternating-or, these contests could remain as they are.

"We submit to the friends of athletics in Harvard and Yale an earnest and thoughtful consideration of the plan suggested, not claiming for it that it is wholly without objection, but believing that it must come soon, and ought to come now, when the time seems to be especially fit for it."