COLLEGE ATHLETICS. 589 



4. Then there are the disorders consequent upon victories. These 

 disorders are sometimes quite serious, but are by no means so serious 

 as they are often represented to be. On the campus such disorders 

 have never been more serious than some disorders taking place after 

 the conferring of degrees. They have always been easily controlled. 

 They have been avoided when the college authorities have given no- 

 tice that a recurrence of them would imperil the existence of the 

 athletic organizations, or annul the permission to play match-games. 

 These disorders, then, can not be a necessary and inherent evil of 

 athletics. 



It may be replied that disorders consequent upon victories are not 

 confined to the college campus. Indeed, to the minds of many candid 

 men, the great disorders which bring dangerous disgrace to the pres- 

 ent system of college athletics, and reflect upon college government 

 as well, occur at the intercollegiate contests, when the athletes meet 

 on neutral ground. Such men admit the advantages of the system. 

 They would encourage it in the separate colleges, but would have 

 it go no further. They would abolish intercollegiate contests alto- 

 gether. But this action would do away with the very element (healthy 

 rivalry between colleges) which is the most effective motive power 

 and stimulus of the whole system. Without this element the system 

 would go to pieces in many colleges. In others it would be miserably 

 contracted and inefficient. For this evil a more general interest in 

 the subject on the part of instructors and parents, and their more gen- 

 eral attendance at the games, would easily suggest the remedies of a 

 healthy and manifested public opinion and a judicious personal influ- 

 ence. 



5. It is charged against athletics that they benefit the few, and 

 that these few are those least requiring the exercise. One part of the 

 charge can be appreciated — that few are benefited — these few being 

 the members of the Crew, Nine, Eleven, and Lacrosse Teams of the 

 university. These, with substitutes, amount to about fifty men. But 

 it has been already shown that more men are induced to exercise than 

 the actual membership of these organizations ; and that the present 

 system affects, in the matter of exercise, at least half of the under- 

 graduate department. 



The objection, that the men under training in the university or- 

 ganizations are the men least requiring the training, can be understood 

 to be one of two propositions, viz., either that these men have natu- 

 rally so much power or skill that they need not develop any more, 

 or that they will cultivate their strength and nerve without being 

 stimulated to do so by the workings of the present system. This 

 would be like arguing, that men of great mental gifts either do not 

 need an education, or would get an education without any opportu- 

 nities being provided for this purpose in a school or college system — a 

 proposition which, however true in exceptional cases, taken as a gen- 



