452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and must economize and systematize his time in order to both study 

 and train. Having steadied their nerves by hard work of the muscles, 

 many such men settle down to study and often make fair scholars. 

 Any instructor who has kept track of the ways of college during 

 the past fifteen years can not fail to be struck by the decreasing 

 number of the really great disorders, by the mildness of those which 

 remain, and by the increasing regard on the part of the students 

 for college authority, college property, and for the rights of fellow- 

 students. 



The system is conducive to the good order of the college, because 

 it furnishes a healthy, interesting topic of conversation out of study- 

 hours. Dr. McCosh has been reported to be alarmed by the very ab- 

 sorbing nature of this topic of conversation. The reporter makes him 

 say, " When one walks across the campus, the conversation he over- 

 hears bears no relation to the science and knowledge which we come 

 here to pursue, but it is this game and that game, this record and that 

 record." Does the gentleman suppose that, if there were no athletics, 

 members of the college who meet one another on the campus would 

 fall into conversation on the absorbing questions of science and knowl- 

 edge ? The college world is like the world in general, in that its in- 

 habitants, when off duty, find their recreation in talking of other sub- 

 jects than those of regular business. The campus is the place where 

 the students discuss other themes than those of the class-room, for the 

 reason that they come together on the campus for diversion. They 

 rightly regard the study and the lecture-room as the places in which 

 the themes of knowledge and science are properly considered. It is 

 not to be expected, neither would it be wise nor desirable, that young 

 men should spend all their time in thinking and talking of their stud- 

 ies. Since they must have something else for their leisure hours, it is 

 well for them to have some such healthy topics of conversation as the 

 athletic sports furnish. They naturally seek some excitement with 

 which to vary the monotony of recitations and lectures. Their manly 

 contests supply this want, and prevent many a man from looking to 

 dissipation and disorder as reliefs from the daily drudgery of the study 

 and the class-room. 



Again, the system conduces to good order in its effects upon class- 

 feeling. It acts upon this class-feeling in two ways : first, in the con- 

 tests between class organizations furnishing a safety-valve for it ; and, 

 second, in the university organizations tending to moderate it. The 

 esprit de corps of a class is not bad in itself. It often furnishes 

 a motive to combined action which can be made powerful for good. 

 In the contests between the class organizations, and in all the athletic 

 exhibitions of the college, there are legitimate opportunities for the 

 free play and development of this feeling. But it is possible for 

 it to become excessive, so that a class, as a body, may have a danger- 

 ous feeling of actual enmity to another class. It is this excessive 



