8 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



INTERCOLLEGIATE CONTESTS 



By Professsor JOHN J. STEVENSON, 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



rpHIETY years ago, student organizations in the ordinary college 

 -*- were few and on a modest scale, laying no serious burden of any 

 sort on the members. All were purely voluntary and members alone 

 shared in either expense or advantage. Gymnastics were recognized 

 officially in few institutions and such athletic clubs as did exist were 

 for amusement. College boys, like other boys, were not all stalwart, 

 some were even ' slab-chested ' ; but the testimony of alumni catalogues 

 proves that their tenacity to life was such that on the average they were 

 very good insurance risks. 



Conditions in many respects have undergone change. A college, 

 whether the students be scores or thousands in number, seems com- 

 pelled to maintain one or more teams in athletics, with frequently a 

 glee club in addition — not in any sense for amusement or for improve- 

 ment, but for contests with similar organizations in other colleges. 

 The expense is serious, but the active members are not expected to 

 defray it, as they ' do the work.' Others must pay the bills, either 

 directly or indirectly, under penalty of being regarded as ' chumps ' 

 without college spirit. If means be available professional coaches are 

 always employed for athletic teams and glee clubs. The selected few 

 in the organizations enter upon their work as a business and undergo 

 severe training, which requires close attention and much time — and 

 this not during vacation periods, but during the college year, when 

 study is supposed to demand most of the student's energy. The total 

 money expenditure on these associations must be something stupendous ; 

 in some institutions, clamoring for funds, the amount annually handled 

 by teams and other organizations is almost enough to endow a pro- 

 fessorship. 



These semi-professional organizations, playing or singing for ' gate 

 money/ have damaged the morals of college students, even the morale 

 of the colleges themselves. Heads of teams keep close watch of sec- 

 ondary schools, not in search of brilliant students, but in search of 

 boys who have made ' records,' and the entrance of such boys brings 

 joy to the student body. New York is only too familiar with the 

 scenes of debauchery which have followed great contests, as gambling 

 has preceded and accompanied them. It has been charged that college 

 authorities wink at flagrant evasions of laws governing amateur con- 

 tests and permit 'ringers' to appear as their representatives; but this 



