FOLLOWING THE TEAM

The exuberance displayed by Harvard supporters at the victory over Yale was due perhaps not so much to the fact that the traditional rival was beaten but that the Harvard team had fulfilled earlier predictions of latent strength and coordination. The defeat of a major rival in these days is only part of a composite goal that Harvard teams strive for and usually gain. To produce an unbeaten team is no longer the all in all of Harvard athletic policy nor the sole aim of Harvard supporters. For it is most certainly true that the idea of sports for the sake of sports is ever gaining a larger following among college students in the East, if not alumni, than might have been fancied some years ago.

When the idea that the banner of victory is the sum total of reasons for playing on the athletic field wavers in the minds of those concerned and the realization that there are further ends attainable, besides that of conquest, an advance in the methods of judging the whole basis of athletic participation is palpable to thinking.

That the team should receive congratulations is natural, that it should be lauded on account of victory unnatural. Harvard has other rivals than Yale and the mere fact of conducting friendly athletic relations with those other teams has broadened the whole outlook on sports. It is not too strange to think that at future time, when severed bonds with Princeton have been spliced, the meaning of victory over Yale will have lost still more of its single significance in comparison with all the events of an entire season.