Mr. Dana's Letter.

The following is an extract from Mr. Dana's letter to the Overseers:-

"In the first place, the number and kind of athletic contests of all sorts are regulated in advance by the faculty's committee on athletics. If the faculty decide that it is best to have but fifteen intercollegiate contests in a year, they can limit them to that number. The present number is such as the faculty consider consistent with the performance of other college duties. It is not left to the students themselves is not left to the students themselves to regulate. The days on which these matches occur, the time the teams leave Cambridge and return are all regulated. A man may be gone for a few days to see the opera in New York, and no account of the absence is kept, but when he goes off with a football team the faculty committee decides when he shall go and how long he shall stay, and his return is carefully noted and recorded.

"The second point stated in the majority's report is that 'the existing system does not, however, tend to create a general habit of athletic exercise among the whole body of students, but. rather tends to discourage it.'

"It is, perhaps, hard to distinguish between the post hoc and the propter hoc in such a case as this, but let us look at the facts. In the old Harvard gymnasium the daily winter attendance, excepting for a week or two just before the opening of the river, when candidates for the class crews come to exercise, was in my observation (1870-1877) somewhere about 20 to 50. I have been in regular daily attendance for months at a time for two hours at the end of the day with not four or five men exercising beside the University crew. There were less than 80 lockers, and they were not always used. In 1880 there were 474 lockers in the new gymnasium, and now there are 1049 all in use, with a demand for at least 50 more. Dr. Sargent tells me that there are 400 students actually in training, more or less, for various athletic teams, and, perhaps, nothing shows the general average improvement more than the fact that last year there were 250 men stronger than the strongest man in 1880. It is safe to say that any alumnus of over eight years' standing, by going to Holmes and Jarvis fields of a pleasant afternoon will see an amount of general exercise many times greater and more diversified than in his college days.

"The argument urged by the Overseers that single sculling was formerly much more prevalent than now cannot be proved; the only time when single shells were numerous being years in which there were single contests.

"The third point made in the report is that the matches take away, not only the players, but 'large numbers of students, who go as spectators. Not less than 400 attended the game at New York last autumn between Harvard and Yale.'

The committee omits to mention that this game was played on Thanksgiving day, so that both the number was exceptionally large and also no students were kept from their college work. If this number is cited, and no other figures are given, with an intention of giving any idea of what usually occurs, even approximately, at other contests out of town, it is wholly misleading. There is usually one decisive ball match, which occurs between Class day and Commencement, at a time when there are no collegiate exercises, which attracts about 50 students from Cambridge, and the university boat race, which is also largely attended, occurs in the summer vacation. The other out of town matches are attended by not over 10 students as spectators, on the average, including, the substitutes, scorers, etc. I have these figures from Dr. Sargent, and they are corroborated by the little general inquiry I have been able to make.

"Fourth-The committee speak of the professional methods and want of good feeling. As to the latter, a dinner between the rival teams after the contests are over, such as the Oxford and Cambridge crews used to have, and perhaps still have, would tend to remove ill feeling.

"The report, however, makes one definite statement, namely, that "students have been known to hiss the good play of their guests and to cheer their failures." Mr. Storey writes me that the committee took no "formal evidence" as to this and are "unable to give any such definite dates" as would enable one to make an independent investigation. I have made what investigation I have been able from several persons who have attended all the important matches that occurred in Cambridge for some years past, and who thoroughly understood the games. It is hard to prove a negative, but, so far at least, I have found no evidence of any such thing. I feel convinced that the committee, in its ardor, have accepted some false rumor for a fact. At all events they admit, I understand, that no such thing has recently occurred, and even supposing it may have taken place in the past, its own voluntary cure without a suspension of the games leaves the majority of your committee in the attitude of the investigator into the Tewksbury almshouse, who found all the ills had been cured before the investigation began.

"As to the more general conclusions that athletics are diverting the students from the object for which they are sent to college, I think, in order not to give an unfair picture, it should be stated that side by side with the increase in athletics, there has been a marked increase in the intellectual activity of the students. Formerly 33 per cent. was the minimum required in each course for a degree, I believe. Now the minimum is 40 per cent., and in addition to that, the student must stand above 65 per cent. in at least one-quarter of his studies.

"Some years ago the President, in his annual report, stated that the standing of the university nine and crew was something above the average of the whole college. I have just seen some unpublished statistics at the dean's office, collected last autumn, showing the standing of the university ball nine, foot ball team and boat crew, with the three chief substitutes for each. Their average for the past year was not below, and probably a little above, the average of the college at large, and the figures show there are both high and low scholars among them. The present method of marking is such that the averages cannot be obtained as exactly as a few years ago, but the conclusion is undoubtedly correct. Morgan's "University Oars" has settled the question for Oxford and Cambridge, that the men rowing in university races have a life longer and a health better than the average college graduate, and among them have been some of the highest double firsts and senior wranglers and some of the most noted men in intellectual pursuits in after life."

Mr. Dana was stroke of the University crew for three years and its captain for two and a half years, at a time when the interest in boating was quite as great as now.