THE 



POPULAK SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



OCTOBER, 1894. 



THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 



BY EUGENE LAMB KICHAEDS, 



PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN YALE UNIVERSITY. 



I WRITE not as an expert, but rather as an intelligent sym. 

 pathizer. I have been for twenty-five years an instructor in 

 Yale College, and believe thoroughly in its traditions of work and 

 scholarship. From my youth up having been fond of athletic 

 exercises, and as a student always ready to participate in them, 

 I can write of them understandingly. I have known personally 

 all the captains of the Yale football teams for the past twelve 

 years, most of them intimately. With one exception they have 

 all been my pupils. One of them was a member of my own fam- 

 ily. Having exceptional knowledge of the subject, which the 

 possession of these opportunities grants to but few men, I deem 

 it a duty to put in permanent form the results of my observa- 

 tions. I have already done this with reference to the subject of 

 athletics in general.* In this article I wish to confine my atten- 

 tion to the game of football. 



I hope to prove that with all its faults it is one of the best 

 forms of athletic sport which can be invented ; that by no other 

 game or exercise practiced by young men are the players them- 

 selves so much benefited as by football ; that the colleges ought 

 to be as much interested in keeping it up as are the most enthu- 

 siastic football players themselves ; that the public, who have 

 boys to educate, ought to acquaint themselves with the subject. 

 Watching the games when possible, they ought not to allow 

 themselves to be beguiled into condemnation of the sport by sen- 



* The Popular Science Monthly, March and February, 1884. 

 TOL. XLT. 53 



