THE END OF INFORMAL SPORT

With the announcement that Yale will have a regular baseball team this spring the first step toward renewed intercollegiate athletics for the University has been taken. There is no doubt that the present system can not continue without bringing about a gradual lassitude in organized sports at the University. The obvious remedy for our athletic disease is to take up games with other colleges.

This news from New Haven makes it seem probable that Harvard-Yale games are not to discontinue during the war, and, if they do, it will be our fault, not theirs. A regular Yale baseball team is being organized and a crew probably will be, though nothing definite has been determined in regard to the latter. Consequently, it is now up to the University to meet the Elis half way.

It is regrettable that an ideal system of informal sports will not live at Cambridge. We are athletically spoiled by watching huge contests on whose outcome championships are at stake; we have been brought up on the idea of the importance of the Yale game and with it gone our whole system breaks down. The candidate for a team wants to get into the big game, and when the final contest turns into a struggle with some preparatory school or service organization, the whole cause for training seems to him wasted. From the observer's point of view, the informal system has failed even more dismally. The support of the undergraduates has been ridiculously weak, and interest in every form has decidedly lagged.

What we need is the old intercollegiate system with its evils taken away. Intramural sport should be encouraged, but it can not be the basis of the system; the example of a University team is the ideal for which every man strives. But the old evils must be abolished; we do not wish to get back into the rut in which we have been running for the last decade. The money question has been the greatest drawback, and next to it, the elaborate system of training, both of which over-emphasize the importance of athletics. These dangers are gone, we hope never to return. Our little touch of in formalism has shown that athletic luxury is unnecessary, and when in future we take up the gage of intercollegiate competition, it will be on a sane, reasonable basis.

The question of coming to terms is the sole remaining barrier. Neither Yale nor the University is willing to have athletics take up a large part of its time; the military drill is far more important and can not be curtailed. We must decide just how many hours of practice the teams shall be allowed, and these practice hours must be regularly adhered to in order to have the universities meet on even terms. Such minor details can be arranged without difficulty, and it will be a happy day in Cambridge when a "big, blue team" once more jogs on to Soldiers Field.