POOR SPORTSMANSHIP

For many years it has been the custom for Harvard to oppose Brown in their annual game with the second or third football team. A glance at the scores of recent games will show that Brown has had teams admittedly inferior to Harvard's first teams, yet this year it must be allowed that our opponents were at least the equal of our best team. The fact that Harvard's first team might have won last Saturday's game is not the essential reason for placing our strongest team on the field against Brown. The present practice of the Harvard coaches fails to give Brown a square deal and presents possible grounds for the charge of an unsportsmanlike policy.

The size of Brown University and the character of its football teams warrant the respect of our best trained eleven. If the present coaching system which, by the way, is beyond criticism as regards the making of football players, believes a comparatively easy contest before the Yale game as necessary for the successful development of the team, the date of the Brown game should be earlier in the football schedule. Either give Brown a date when Harvard's strongest team can oppose her, or run the ever-present chances of injuries to our best players and play the first-string men on the usual date.

Thus for a large number of Harvard graduates have been the only ones to voice this sentiment, yet the spirit of fair play and good sportsmanship seems to recommend this criticism as worthy of consideration on the part of the undergraduates and the Athletic Committee. The increasing tendency of college athletics is more and more towards the calculating, efficient ideal of modern business, and away from the recreative standard of true sport for sport's sake. The adoption of a progressive suggestion may mean a certain amount of sacrifice, but it is well worth while when the step tends towards better sportsmanship.