Free Seats in the Stadium

Last Saturday the Boston papers carried the announcement of a ten million dollar endowment fund to be created at Harvard, solely for the benefit of athletics. Although the authenticity of the announcement was subsequently denied by President Lowell, the idea of an athletic endowment leads one to speculate on the possibility of a coming change in the present status of college athletics.

Under such an endowment, with athletics freed from financial dependence, the benefit of the student body at large rather than the attraction of big gates would have a chance to become the ideal. Intercollegiate contests might even become subordinated to intramurals, which, in the last analysis, are the most important branch of college athletics. As long as intramural sports are dependent on varsity earnings they will necessarily occupy the subordinate position.

A minor change under an athletic endowment would be the probable abolishment of admission charges for undergraduates and alumni years ago, when the Harvard Stadium was first built, the students were promised free seats at all the games as soon as the debts were paid off. If this endowment should ever become a reality, Harvard would be able to keep her promise at last.

Possibly herein lies the solution to the problem of the overemphasis of overemphasis. The Dartmouth.