CULTIVATING THE TASTE

Minor sports in the University are much like Broadway successes on the road: one will "go big" in a certain town, while another will be a failure--all for no very evident reason. The managers who "book the shows" gradually learn a town's preferences, and send it only the types it has welcomed; but meanwhile the advocates of the other types will keep trying to change the local taste.

Since basketball was reinstated as a minor sport here three years ago, its followers, in their quest for popular recognition; have always been overshadowed by hockey. Still they have persisted, with the example before them of other colleges, notably Yale and Princeton, where both sports meet with equal favor. This impartiality may be due to the fact that there hockey is a minor sport and therefore less emphasized, or to interest in the intercollegiate Basketball League, to which the University does not belong. At any rate the game has found much less popularity here; and unless the taste is changed, the managers of this particular road-show will feel inclined to book other attractions.

Hemenway, Gymnasium, with a total capacity, including standing room, of eight hundred, has rarely, if ever, had more than a quarter of that number for any game this year. Despite this lack of encouragement, however, the team has come through a successful season, winning fourteen games and losing four. The game tonight against Yale, the Intercollegiate League champion, will serve admirably to supply the needed "taste"; it remains for the undergraduates to cultivate it.