1 98 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



essentially from the public, which is, to speak plainly, little interested 

 in learning, and knows little of those devoted to it. If the future 

 historian, or the traveler from Altruria, wishing to inform himself of 

 the relation of the public to the colleges, should consult the documents, 

 that is the newspapers, could he help concluding that the main busi- 

 ness of the institutions of learning, and the one supported by the public, 

 was the cultivation of athletic sports and contests ? Are not our largest 

 colleges chiefly known to the newspaper-reading public through the 

 records of their athletic teams ? When we hear the " spirit " of certain 

 institutions spoken of, does it mean anything else than a concentration 

 of all the forces of youth on the task of overcoming athletic rivals ? It 

 is, to be sure, an inspiring sight to see these forces concentrated on any- 

 thing of importance with the determination to overcome difficulties, 

 but does not the importance of the athletic success seem magnified out 

 of all proportion, and is it compatible with that sane view of life which 

 should, above all, be the possession of the educated man? Let us con- 

 sider the amount of interest in athletics on the basis of the sums ex- 

 pended for it in comparison with other departments of activity. In 

 a recent daily paper I find the budget for athletics at the University 

 of Pennsylvania for the past year to amount to $88,863.85. During 

 the same time fifteen colleges and universities in the State of New 

 York, including Columbia and Cornell, spent on books for their libra- 

 ries $67,587. This is less by $20,000 than the sum spent for the same 

 purpose by the Brooklyn Public Library. We also find that at a single 

 football game there is taken in in gate-receipts the sum of eighty 

 thousand dollars, a sum, I may say, more than sufficient to run this 

 university and college together for a whole year. What a commentary 

 are these figures on American civilization ! I do not grudge the ex- 

 penditure of money on gymnasiums or whatever is necessary to the 

 development of muscle and the maintenance of health, which is the 

 prime necessity for success in any walk of life, but when I find in the 

 above budget the sum of $29,688 for football, I feel a certain sense of 

 scandal. I am aware that certain cities in the days of the decadence 

 of Eome maintained bands of gladiators for the diversion of the public, 

 but I can not feel that we shall do well by imitating them. I have 

 never been able to reconcile myself to the spending by my own alma 

 mater of over one hundred thousand dollars for a stadium, while she 

 alone of all the great universities lacks a worthy library building, and 

 can not find the funds to build it. 



It will be said in explanation of the public interest in athletics that 

 this is the field of activity most visible, even if the activity is not the 

 greatest. Let us consider what are the fields of activity of a college 

 or university. Founded at first with the avowed object of educating 

 young men for the Christian ministry, our colleges naturally developed 



