AVOID THAT FILM

Dartmouth and Harvard are making efforts to abolish the football scout. Espionage will give way to the slow motion picture. There are many material benefits to be gained from this plan. Expense will be eliminated, time will be saved, and error will be reduced. Intersectional games have made scouting an expensive luxury. When the contract of a coach depends upon good results he will take no chances. He will get men who can provide able reports on opponents. Fine men command fine salaries.

The works of a machine are superior, in this case, to the works of man. It is a question if either one is a valuable addition. Football is a boys game: it is not a man's livelihood. All these trappings reduce a team to a Frankenstein constructed for the purpose of crushing other Frankensteins. They aren't necessary elements of any game. An espionage by camera might just as well be carried on in baseball. A slow motion picture would show the batting weakness of a rival college, or it would prove the exact trajectory of a star pitcher's out drop. But it wouldn't add to the enjoyment of either the watchers or the watched. Drudgery is not necessarily the complement of a winning team, but scouting is one of the things that mars football as a sporting event.