THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 725 



only the best players, but the most successful teams have con- 

 tained the most moral and religious men. In a class prayer-meet- 

 ing I once heard a man, who was for two years a most valuable 

 player (a captain one of those years), declare that the great suc- 

 cess of the team the previous season was, in his opinion, due to the 

 fact that " among the team and substitutes there were so many 

 praying men/' As it was with this man, so it has ever been with 

 the successful captains as well as the successful coachers at Yale. 

 They have been God-fearing men, upright in action and clean in 

 speech. 



With reference to the colleges, the good effects of the game of 

 football which they produce in common with the other sports 

 need only a passing mention. Among these may be instanced 

 the esprit de corps to which they give rise, the healthy excite- 

 ments necessary to young men which they furnish excitements 

 which, for many, replace and moderate, if they do not entirely 

 drive out, the old excitements of gambling and drinking, gate- 

 stealing, contests between town and gown, formerly so prevalent 

 and so difficult to deal with on the part of the college authorities. 

 But in addition to these and other benefits to the college world, 

 football with its contests and training comes at a time of the year 

 when it does the most good not only in the directions mentioned, 

 but in two other ways. Boys who are just entering college and, 

 who are for the first time in their careers freed from the restraints 

 of school or home, it introduces to a new discipline, a discipline of 

 their fellows, and to new ideals, which, if not the highest, are at 

 least respectable and worthy of imitation. It brings many of them 

 in contact with the best men in college, and saves not a few of 

 them from wasting their idle hours in foolish and hurtful dissi- 

 pation. Again, it absorbs the attention of all the college to such 

 a degree as to divert the minds of many of those upper classmen 

 who formerly thought they had a mission to perform in acquaint- 

 ing the new men with the submission required of them in their 

 college home. The discipline of the sport coming at the time it 

 does has almost entirely done away with that occupation. The 

 freshmen have learned their lesson in a better way, under better 

 instructors. The discipline of football has almost banished the 

 discipline of hazing, or left it tame and without excuse for its 

 existence. 



To the public the sport is most valuable, especially for those 

 who have boys to educate. The game has spread from the col- 

 leges to the schools. The discipline of play has helped the dis- 

 cipline of the study room. Indeed, it has supplemented it with 

 a new education. It has furnished stronger bodies with better 

 brains. It has given an antidote to excessive culture, which 

 often enfeebles the body while it refines the mind. It has given 



