LONGETIVITY AND SPORTSMANSHIP

In comparison with the pyrotechnics of the sensational "expose" of last fall, the second survey of the Carnegie Foundation on college athletics seems mild. Dealing with the literature written on athletics as a subsidiary to education, on the controversy between mass athletics and specialized competition, and on the aspects of overemphasis and faculty control, the Foundation's charges, more general than those of the now famous "Bulletin No. 23", are not startlingly new. The survey is more a summary of what athletics ought to be as contrasted to what they are.

One point, around which not so great a welter of discussion has been raised, is the longevity of college athletes, to which the report adds valuable information. Their findings that the sportsman will live no longer than his non-competing classmate and not as long as the Phi-Beta Kappa bear out to a large degree the statements of the I. C. A. A. A. A. on the subject, which were published last year. The statistics themselves, however, must naturally have been compiled from the generations before the turn of the century, and cannot reflect the increased medical supervision, intelligent coaching and improved dietetics which have kept pace with the advance of modern competition on the playing field. Generalizations are, as yet, premature.

As the report states in conclusion, there remains very little doubt that the athletic ideals of the American colleges, the moral benefits and the development of true sportsmanship, are almost universally the hopes and beliefs of their proponents rather than demonstrated proofs. Winning is what counts and the means does not, except as an added assurance to that end. Any pronounced leanings toward anglican customs are, justly or not, generally looked at askance in this country. The English idea that it is better to lose a well-played match than win a sloppy one is one transatlantic attitude that might stand a bit more importation.