THE FOOTBALL SITUATION. 727 



athletic fields, and better playgrounds, have arisen to help on 

 this good work. 



As to the disadvantages of football, the sport is like every- 

 thing else : it is subject to evils. The question is not whether 

 there are evils attending the game, but whether the evils over- 

 balance the good. I admit the evils, but I maintain that the evils 

 have been exaggerated, and that they are not yet great enough to 

 call for the abolition of the game. 



Evil No. 1 : Excessive time devoted to practice. This charge 

 only applies to the last few weeks of preparation. The first 

 weeks, two hours and a half for most of the players would be the 

 maximum time. For the half-backs three hours would suffice for 

 their maximum time. Part of this time, too, is consumed in going 

 to and from the field or practice ground. Some of the players, more 

 systematic than their fellows, do not consume even so much time. 

 But in the last few weeks, varying in numbers according to the 

 judgment of the captain and coaches of the year, more time is 

 used, amounting, under the most exacting captain, to as many as 

 five hours and a half a day for five weeks. I may add, however, 

 that this exacting captain overdid the business, tired out his 

 team, and suffered the humiliation of a defeat. The most success- 

 ful captain whom I have known saved the time of his men all 

 through the season, seldom giving them more than two hours' 

 practice, and devoting only one week to hard practice. Five 

 hours a day is too much time for a student to devote to any sport. 

 So much time devoted to practice is not necessary for success. 

 On the contrary, it interferes with success, so that this evil is 

 bound to work its own cure. But, even granted that five and a 

 half hours per day for five weeks were given to football practice, 

 it does not follow that those are taken from study, or that, if the 

 game of football were driven out of college, all the players would 

 betake themselves to books. Some of them would give part of 

 their time to study, but poor scholars of the team would still con- 

 tinue to be poor students. Indeed, it is my belief that they would 

 be poorer scholars than before. When they are on the team the 

 very necessity to economize their time compels these men to regu- 

 lar hours of work. When they cease to play football they waste 

 their time. It has always been the result of my observation that 

 though the good scholars of the team do better work in the winter 

 and spring terms, the poor scholars at that time usually fall off 

 in scholarship. But if football is a cause of poor scholarship, 

 why is it that the cause is not uniform in its effects ? If it were 

 uniform in its effects all the players would be poor students. Yet 

 the highest honor men are often members of teams. But it may 

 be said that the introduction of football into college has affected 

 the scholarship of the college in general unfavorably, even if it 



