BIG THREE WHAT?

The past fortnight has witnessed a series of events which would have filled the minds of college students of a generation age with worry and dismay. Within two successive Saturdays each of the so-called Big Three has suffered defeat on the football field at the hands of what that same generation would have considered inferior colleges.

And what is the significance. Are Harvard, Yale and Princeton, so long the leading colleges of the country, slipping from their high eminence? Will the Big Three of the future be composed, not of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but, say, of Notre Dame, Iowa, and Colgate? Did Harvard, Yale, and Princeton build their prestige on winning football teams; and, losing must they surrender it?

There are college propagandists who will say so, and who doubtless will believe so. Yet such remarks, and such beliefs can only display a sad misconception of the place and purpose of institutions of higher education in American life, a failure to discriminate between the essential and the incidental.

These are questions which must interest every college student in America. And to answer them involves consideration not only of football systems, but of systems of education as well. Whoever is bothered by uncertainty should study the problem and draw his own conclusion.