Letter from a Recent Graduate.

We have received the following letter from Mr. W. H. Goodwin '84, one of our best known athletes, and are very glad to publish it. We recommend it to the thoughtful attention of the college.

Editors Daily Crimson:

To many graduates who now feel the same deep and lively interest in college athletics which stirred them to their very marrow and nerved them to their utmost endeavor in every contest during those fast flying years when they were themselves at old Harvard, there is apparent today throughout the University, an explicable feeling that is in the very air of Cambridge; among the men on the various athletic teams as well as among the undergraduates at large. A lifeless, listless attitude toward everything; a "we can't-help-it" spirit that is sickening. In short a total lack of real, whole souled enthusiasm.

What right has the college to expect victories on land or water if they do not back up their teams better. not with money but by their presence, by their cheers and by every man offering himself for what he may be worth to Harvard.

It is a small and selfish thing for a man to prefer his own leisure to Harvard's prestige, dawddling away his time in Boston or loafing about the clubs, when his presence and example on the crew, the nine, or the track might put Harvard to the fore, and such a man should be condemned cordially; but instead of that one hears him commiserated for being compelled to keep in training four or five months in the year. Such a spirit will never defeat Yale and Princeton. Men go out to the ball games and sit like so many dummies, almost afraid to cheer lest they may hurt their opponent's feelings, and if they do cheer it is not the old ringing, victory bringing, Harvard shout but a slow dirgelike moan that presages defeat. Would that I may be proved in error as to this in the coming Yale game.

The tendency is toward a great divergence in the field of athletics. Let the crew, the nine, the eleven and the Mott Haven team first receive the benefit of every man's enthusiasm. Win in those branches before you try for honors in other courses. Cultivate such a spirit as will not allow any one who suits his own lazy, selfish inclinations where he might be of help to the college in one way or another to maintain his position before his fellow students, and then with every man honestly doing his best, physically, mentally and pecuniarily for the common glory you will see Harvard leap to the front where she belongs, and our friends from Yale and Princeton will once again dread to meet the Crimson.

Respectfully

W. H. GOODWIN, Jr., '84. Jamaica Plain, June 4, 1889.