86 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



One may wonder why these college authorities, with power to stop, 

 consent to continuance of the conditions. Many reasons are given in 

 justification, most of them purely evasive and absurd; but there is one 

 argument which is regarded as final and unanswerable. These contests 

 arouse college spirit among the students; they advertise the college; 

 they awake enthusiasm among the alumni; an important contest re- 

 ceives elaborate notice on the sporting page which everybody reads, 

 and the community learns that the college exists; a glee club swings 

 around the circle of a score of towns and proves better for advertising 

 than if the virtues of the college were blazoned on even Gibson posters 

 adorning fifty miles of fences. No one was surprised to read a tele- 

 gram one day in November last to the effect that the Association of 

 Presidents of State Universities at its Washington meeting tabled ' a 

 resolution — deploring the brutality, and waste of time resulting from 

 the game [football] as now played.' 



It may be said that, as a rule, parents are not only willing, but are 

 also gratified, to find their sons prominent in these organizations; but 

 the vast majority of parents know nothing about college work and they 

 confide in the wisdom as well as in the integrity of the men to whom 

 they have entrusted the education of their sons. There is no room for 

 casuistry here. If a school of business should encourage students to 

 glorify it by contests which might lead to paralysis of the right hand, 

 •or if a divinity school should provide opportunities for contests which 

 might induce permanent injury to the voice, the press would comment 

 at least unfavorably upon the wisdom of those in control. But tech- 

 nical schools, preparing men to be civil, mechanical or mining engi- 

 neers, encourage their students to take part in football, though the 

 authorities know that knees, ankles, shoulders and back are likely to be 

 so injured as to handicap the man throughout life. This is no merely 

 academic proposition, as is evident from the list of injuries reported 

 officially in two institutions at the close of the 1905 season. 



The recent discussions awakened by the increasing brutality of 

 football tend to divert attention from other and far more important 

 matters. Immense sums of money have been given for educational 

 purposes, many times by men unfamiliar with college conditions but 

 anxious to advance the good of their fellows in the most effective way. 

 One can hardly imagine that they expected their money to be employed 

 in the encouragement of semi-professional organizations and in devel- 

 oping the shirking propensities of young men. One may well ask if 

 colleges are acting in good faith toward their benefactors, toward 

 parents as well as toward the students themselves. 



The college course covers four years and much is said about the 

 necessity for shortening it; the technical courses cover four years and 

 much is said about the necessity of lengthening them. The writer 

 believes that the college course should cover four years and that four 



