MAJOR MOORE AND AN ATHLETIC ENDOWMENT

Printed in the adjacent column is a letter from Major F. W. Moore, Graduate Treasurer of the Harvard Athletic Association, in answer to an editorial which appeared in the CRIMSON on Saturday. The CRIMSON is sorry to have had Major Moore construe its editorial as an attack upon him. It was not intended as such. But probably to a military mind, to disagree is, in a way, to attack.

The CRIMSON editorial did disagree with what, in all fairness, it interpreted to be Major Moore's purpose in writing the Bulletin article: namely, to show that more seats are needed in the Stadium, and, therefore, should be provided, either by building a new Stadium or enlarging the present one. The letter herewith printed says that this interpretation was erroneous.

Every Harvard student will rejoice to have Major Moore's assurance that he would never think of sacrificing "the interest of general athletics for all in order to secure more seats for the football games." Students will also be grateful for the efforts he has made to secure a new gymnasium, more squash courts, a swimming pool, and a golf course. All these projects now seem imminent. While giving due recognition to Major Moore's efforts, it will be remembered, however, that these projects have been imminent for several years.

It now appears that Major Moore wrote his article for the Alumni Bulletin simply to show the distribution of seats at the Yale game; and that the inadequacy of seats was put in as a sort of revelatory after-thought, perhaps to amuse the graduates. If this was so, then Major Moore has closed his letter with a strangely irrelevant argument. He shows that additional seats in the Stadium--he didn't "urge the need" of them in the Bulletin; though he does so now--will help pay for the gymnasium, swimming pool, and other athletic equipment.

The CRIMSON has already pointed out in previous editorials that this financial argument is the final recourse of all who defend the present status of football. If that status is pernicious, as the CRIMSON believes, then the only way to bring about permanent readjustment is to relieve other sports of financial dependence upon football. This implies an athletic endowment. Major Moore in an interview with the press last week, decried this suggestion. If, however, athletics have a legitimate place in college education, and the CRIMSON is convinced that they have, it should be no more impossible to raise an endowment for athletics than for chemistry, or fine arts, or any other department of the educational system.

All departments of Harvard education are now supported by endowments except athletics sufficient proof that alumni are interested in Harvard education merely as such. Why should athletics be disinherited and thrown upon their own support for existence? Science and philosophy are not so treated. Surely this distinction is made because athletics have been looked upon as not constituting an integral part of the educational process. Under the present system coaches feel constant pressure to concentrate upon a few men in order to produce winning teams. Athletics have not been general enough to justify an endowment. As Mr. Arthur Howe, former Yale quarterback, pointed out at the Wesleyan conference, athletics have been conducted like professional sporting clubs, and consequently supported as such. We believe this attitude is false. Since sound bodily development is essential to the perfection of nobler qualities of mind and soul, athletics for all must become the new ideal. When this ideal is actually established, there will then be nothing extraordinary in the notion of an athletic endowment.

From the foregoing discussion we hope it will be clear that the CRIMSON, while haying no thought of attacking Major Moore, does still disagree with him, and has good reasons for disagreement.