TWO YEAR ELIGIBILITY

The latest wrinkle in the way of reforming college extra-curricular activities was disclosed yesterday in an editorial appearing in the Daily Dartmouth, which, being the last act of an outgoing editorial staff, strongly advocates a two-year eligibility ruling in order to subordinate the less serious aims of the college student.

The main argument advanced in support of such an eligibility restriction is that it would remove men from athletic competition during their senior year, leaving them unhampered by outside distractions to concentrate upon the serious business of obtaining a degree. This movement has already gained a footing at Dartmouth in several non-athletic organizations, a notable example being the Dartmouth which now elects editors for their Junior year, and which is the principal advocate for the projected eligibility ruling. M. I. T. has a system by which all Seniors are restricted from getting more than a set total of points, each activity and each student office having a certain number.

Dartmouth's proposal comes in the midst of the annual widespread reaction stressing the overemphasis of sports which always reaches its peak shortly after the football season has become history. Educators, seeking publicity, demand that athletic overemphasis be stopped and are quoted in headlines deriding sport commercialism, but the following autumn are again among those clamoring for seats on the fifty-yard line. This present agitation can well be put into this same category of ballyhoo reforms. College athletics are at present in a healthy condition and can hardly benefit by radical suggestions.

Furthermore, barring Seniors from participation in athletics would rob many a man of his banner year on the gridiron, rink, or diamond. Scholastic duties reach their peak in the Senior year of a man's college career but a student should then also be at his peak of maturity. If a man has not learned by his Senior year how to divide his time between sports and studies the chances are he never will.