SCOUTING

Class followers of football will, on he whole, agree with Mr. Bingham's decision not to continue with the non scouting plan that has been given a thorough trial by the Harvard football authorities this fall.

On paper, the non-scouting plan sounds very reasonable, but in practice it has not quite achieved its ends. As football is now played, with the tremendous interest that it evokes among graduates, friends, and other supporters; with newspapers devoting expert analysts, feature writers, and photographers; with the coaching staff and retainers of each side numbering scores of men, any movement, any word uttered, any picture published, is apt to result in a violation of the spirit at least of the agreement. Under the circumstances, a football coach cannot look at a newspaper, he cannot talk to friends, he cannot read his mail, for fear of finding out something about the opposing team. The mere presence of a Harvard man at Yale during the fall is enough to cause ugly rumours, and indeed such rumours have evidently been heard in New Haven, and anyone in close touch with Harvard football has heard the same rumours on Soldiers Field.

There are other arguments that might be advanced for organized scouting. But the danger of non-scouting as a breeder of suspicion and distrust is sufficient to justify its abandonment. Like so many other reforms, conceived with the best of intentions and carried out sincerely, non-scouting has failed to work. Some would cite prohibition, which instead of removing the evils it aimed at, has brought forth a new set of evils, rendered doubly had because they are under cover. Others might cite the suppression of allegedly improper books, which had they been left alone would have died their natural death quickly, but once advertised as improper, found their way into the playroom of every impressionable child.

Nor can it be shown that non-scouting has failed at Harvard for want of thoroughness in the application of the theory. It has been tried and abandoned elsewhere, with Yale and Princeton--where the agreement was purely a personal one between the rival coaches as the only instance of unqualified success. Such personal agreements are still possible under Mr. Bingham's policy.

Scouting had in recent years done away with snooping. Non-scouting seems to have caused the reappearance of the latter practice among non-official supporters at least. And even where there has been neither scouting nor snooping, there has been suspicion.

Thus is another Utopia, soundly enough conceived, shattered by the test of reality, practice, human nature, what not.