COLLEGE DIVERSIONS 71 



COLLEGE DIVEKSIONS 



By Professor JOHN J. STEVENSON 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



THE phase assumed by discussions respecting athletics must bring 

 great comfort to coaches and others who derive profit or glory 

 from intercollegiate contests. They are to be congratulated upon the 

 success attending their efforts to divert attention from the serious 

 matters at issue and in concentrating it upon wholly irrelevant in- 

 quiries as to the alleged brutality of football. 



It may be said in passing that a game which, in the short season 

 just closed, can boast of 30 killed, 20 others fatally wounded, as well 

 as nearly 1,000 more or less seriously injured, may be regarded as 

 fairly brutal ; but this is merely incidental : if parents choose to permit 

 their sons to play football, that is their concern. The main issue is 

 vastly broader and the dust raised about football is merely an attempt 

 to conceal it. 



If a visitor from some outside region should read the college papers, 

 which are encouraged because they give young men an " admirable 

 preparation for journalistic work in after life," he would be convinced 

 that American boys in college think of little aside from professional 

 sport. Appeals to college spirit abound, urging the fellows to attend 

 the games and to bring their friends — to prevent a deficit in the treas- 

 ury; lamentations are prolonged, deploring the lack of college spirit 

 shown by muscular men who fail to apply for places on the teams; 

 there are doleful predictions because students do not pay up for sup- 

 port of the several crews and gloomy forecasts abound because the 

 college is in danger of losing its high standing. If a team has gained a 

 victory, the paper is hardly large enough to hold the story; the work 

 done by the coaches is extolled as entitling them to the everlasting 

 gratitude of the college, for whose advancement they have done so 

 much. It is true that the college professors are not forgotten ; there are 

 frequent references to them in connection with the formulation of new 

 rules abridging still further the personal liberty of students. 



If the visitor pass into the college buildings he might be led to 

 believe that the professors themselves respect intellectual prowess as 

 little as the students do. The walls are often decorated with trophies 

 won in intercollegiate contests; the names of college champions shine 

 out on the roll adorning the gymnasium, but he finds no roll of honor- 

 men in the class-rooms ; silver cups and medals of gold, silver or bronze 

 abound for athletes, but prizes for men who excel in study are few and 



