SLOW PROGRESS

Mr. Bingham's first annual report to the President on the purposes and future of athletic activity at Harvard once again calls attention in striking manner to the fact that last year for the first time the Corporation recognized athletics as an integral part of higher education, by its appointment of Mr. Bingham to the Faculty as Director of Athletics.

This is not the place to attempt a review of his accomplishments during his short tenure of that office. Suffice it to say that the most cursory examination of the files of this paper reveals conclusively to what purpose Mr. Bingham has exerted his influence. With the single exception of a serious blunder in the conduct of Harvard's athletic relations with Princeton, including the proposed intersectional game with Michigan, that purpose has been a salutary one. Necessarily, however, one year and a half of office can mark only the initiation of Mr. Bingham's policies. Particularly because collegiate sport is now passing through a period of crisis it is of the utmost importance to know how Mr. Bingham proposes to extend those policies and what additional ones, if any, he proposes to adopt.

An examination of his report reveals first the basic generalization, "that there is no substitute for intercollegiate competition in the form of intramural sports; there is place for both." That is almost a truism but it immediately raises the question what places, what positions of relative importance shall they occupy. Already this spring the Second Team intercollegiate baseball schedule has been discarded with the exception of a game with Yale for intramural competition. Such a move would seem to indicate that all second teams, essentially intercollegiate in their organization, would be abolished in favor of class teams. It might logically be extended to all Freshman teams. It might even be developed to a less extend in University intercollegiate teams. The early weeks of practice in almost every major sport, for instance, are now devoted to what is essentially, though informally, intramural competition. It would seen consistent with both parts of Mr. Bingham's basic principle, that, in order to reach and maintain a proper balance between intercollegiate and intramural activity, those periods of preliminary practice should be lengthened and formalized into class competition providing in this manner for more intense interest in "Athletics for All". This would by no means eliminate intercollegiate sport. It would merely cut down schedules whose length at present unquestionably interfere with the intramural spirit by providing an overwhelming counter interest appealing to the potential spectator which exists in every man.

In the body of his report Mr. Bingham holds out a somewhat vague but nevertheless encouraging promise for a new gymnasium and swimming pool, and further tennis courts and field space, all of which are necessary material adjusts to a successful cuimination of "Athletics for All". Surely, however, there would be a contradiction in the administration of this policy if there was any serious development of his suggestion about "the possibility of constructing a new stadium." The money expended in such an enormous undertaking has more logical uses in a university which has declared so often its loyalty to intramural development and so often denied and denounced the "arena" complex under which the intellectual if not the moral integrity of the administrators of American higher education suffers considerably today.

A very striking paragraph of the report refers to the fact that not one cent of the revenue from football games in the past year has been devoted to increasing the budgets of present intercollegiate teams. That income will be used instead to finance intramural development. Such an accomplishment is indicative of the high standards and ability of the Director in the face of a good deal of under cover opposition. It is, however, hardly fair to draw from such an accomplishment the conclusion that "We do not regard football at Harvard as a commercial proposition." No matter to what good ends the income from stadium gate receipts is devoted the fundamental fact remains true that football at Harvard, as elsewhere under the present system, is a business by which the University supports its other athletic activities. It differs only from professional sport in that the eleven men earn profits not for themselves but for their university. Carried to its logical conclusion one might say that an undefeated team would supply ten extra tennis courts and a new locker building while a below average team would pay only for the maintenance of the present equipment. This anachronism can be remedied only by an athletic endowment.

Mr. Bingham's report, while it record progress and promises further development, leaves much unsaid which must be said sooner or later. It does not quite penetrate to the fundamentals of the athletic problem. Because it comes from the man upon whom Harvard has rightly staked the solution of that problem it is disappointing judged by any other standard than that of a somewhat over cautions step by step advance.