COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 723 



it brings the whole force of college opinion to bear in favor of a 

 healthy, moral life. To be sure, the desire to defeat a rival club or 

 team is not the highest motive of the human mind ; the honor of win- 

 ning a medal in a race is not the greatest honor which earth can 

 afford. The glory of being champions at any game seems puerile to 

 serious-minded people ; but we must take young people as we find 

 them. If we can not induce them to exercise by the " deep moral sig- 

 nificance " of " the beauty of symmetry of form," we must lay hold of 

 the motives, not wrong, which do influence them. The majority of 

 them not being open to the highest motives, we take the next best 

 motives which appeal to them. That is the principle on which all 

 education is conducted. Competitions, prizes, medals, honors, appeal 

 to students, move them, and hold them to efforts which higher and 

 worthier objects fail to call forth. By these we educate them to habits 

 which fit them to receive the higher motives. They are their school- 

 masters to train them for a better life. So it is in athletic sports. By 

 habits of exercise from earliest youth young men are educated to ap- 

 preciate the value of it. Accustomed to feel the good effects of it in 

 themselves, or to see the good of it in the person of some upholder of 

 the honor of their club, they learn to admire the cause of this good. 

 The prominent athletes present examples of beauty of form and vigor- 

 ous health. The sight of them stimulates many a man to try on his 

 own person the effect of the training which he sees embodied in the 

 winners of prizes or championships. More than this, having once 

 learned the value of exercise to health, he forever associates together 

 health and exercise in a necessary companionship. So the athletes 

 preach to all men by example. 



We will now consider the various athletic sports, in order that we 

 may weigh the justice of Dr. Sargent's remarks on the evils of making 

 "excellence in achievement " their " primary object." We may elimi- 

 nate from the sports certain ones not liable to these evils, such as have 

 for their object a victory, not a prize. To the contestants the im- 

 portance of match-games of foot- ball, base-ball, lacrosse, and polo lies 

 not in excellence of achievement, but in defeating rival organizations. 

 The big score may be desirable, but the principal aim is the champion- 

 ship. Rowing, also, may be said to be free from these evils, because, 

 though "good form" and the best stroke may be aimed at, the prin- 

 cipal purpose is to put the boat over the course fast enough to come 

 in first at the finish. Excellence in achievement consists in winning 

 the race. Fast time may be acceptable, but, if the winning boat 

 makes the fastest time for its particular race, the winning crew is sat- 

 isfied. 



If, therefore, we remove base-ball, foot-ball, and rowing from the 

 list of athletic exercises which are liable to the evils following from 

 " making excellence in achievement "" the primary object " of them. 

 Dr. Sargent's seven specifications can not apply to them. Some of 



