A FIGHTING CHANCE.

Harvard has recovered. Such appears to be the universal opinion of football critics. And men who on November 5 said that Harvard could not defeat Yale, are beginning to think better of the remark. Two factors have led to a reconsideration: Yale was unable to run up as great a score on Princeton as was Harvard, and Harvard fairly defeated the team which plainly outclassed Princeton. Hence, Harvard stock, so to speak, rises accordingly, Yale declines, and all goes merrily--until next Saturday. Then the crash comes and we must wait for another chance, when we shall, of course, profit by past experiences and not be so confident. Does not such a story sound familiar in Harvard football annals of the past? It is time that this almost annual gloom were dispelled for good and all.

This year have we not learned by heart that lesson which overconfidence teaches? Three of the classes now in College witnessed the bitter disappointment of last year's Yale game, (many of the present players participated in it) and all of us saw what effect the Brown game had on the Princeton game this year.

Nor have the two reasons for a certain confidence noted above, any real advantage for Harvard. The sole fact that Princeton defeated Yale will convert the Yale eleven of next Saturday from an ordinary Yale team confident of defeating Harvard into a desperate machine fighting to the last ditch not only to overwhelm Harvard but to turn a whole season from utter failure into partial success. Princeton's victory Saturday puts Yale in exactly that position where the latter appears to the very best advantage; namely, fighting against odds. And it is a rare Yale team that does not win under those circumstances.

Now, what the CRIMSON wants to impress on undergraduates for the rest of this week is, first, that Harvard has only a fighting chance, and not a shade more; second, that to hit that chance is going to require the most enthusiastic determined moral support at mass meetings or other demonstrations of that same spirit; and, third, that in the Stadium on Saturday there must be a real power behind the team to give it that drive necessary to defeat such an antagonist as Yale will surely prove.