22 



SCIENCE. 



, [N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 601. 



ceived in play and practise, on account of ex- 

 treme publicity, absurd exaltation of the hero, 

 large amounts of money spent, immoral tend- 

 encies inherent in the game itself, profes- 

 sionalism, and finally because of the harmful 

 influences on scholarship. On the last of these 

 alleged evils at least, facts are available. 



To aver that trustworthy conclusions on the 

 relation of scholarship and athletics can be 

 drawn only from hundreds of cases covering 

 a number of years would seem a trite observa- 

 tion, if one were not daily confronted with 

 opinions based on absurdly insufficient data, 

 and stoutly maintained. Mrs. A. is perfectly 

 sure that all athletics should be abolished, 

 because, forsooth, her boy played on a football 

 team and failed to pass his examinations. 

 Mr. B. regards such an opinion as absurd, 

 because he knows of a whole team which failed 

 not of promotion. Both are equally firm in 

 their opinions and equally regardless of the 

 fact that the whole question is a relative one, 

 and that general truths can not be established 

 by exceptional data. 



It seems, on the other hand, that conclu- 

 sions concerning the effect of athletics on 

 scholarship might be creditable if based on 

 years of experience, scores of studies, hundreds 

 of students and thousands of grades, recorded 

 by a large number of teachers in several insti- 

 tutions. Such conclusions I have gathered 

 with great care, and I now offer them for 

 what they are worth. 



At Bates College, Lewiston, Me., I exam- 

 ined the records in all studies for the past five 

 years of the 132 men who have played on the 

 baseball and football teams. These records I 

 compared with those of all the other male 

 students, 620 in number, in all studies for the 

 same period. The averages thus reached are 

 drawn from 2,030 grades for athletes and 9,320 

 grades for others. These grades were made 

 up by twenty-five instructors. The table shows 

 that in no year is the difference of rank more 

 than eight per cent, or less than four per cent., 

 and that the average difference is 5.6 per cent., 

 always in favor of the men who have not taken 

 part in intercollegiate games. 



BATES COLLEGE. 



Athletes. Non-athletes. 



1900-1901 77 81 



1901-1902 75 80 



1902-1903 74 80 



1903-1904 73 79 



1904-1905 71 79 



Average 74 79.6 



No. of grades 2,030 9,320 



No. of men 132 620 



For Bowdoin College a similar table has 

 just been compiled by students in education 

 at that college, showing the ranks attained by 

 all students in all courses for the past five 

 years. The averages only are here given. 

 The first table represents the ranks of all men 

 who played regularly on the football and base- 

 ball teams; the second table includes the ranks 

 of all other students. The averages are se- 

 cured from 18,750 individual ranks, represent- 

 ing each year the scholarship records of 280 

 men. The tables show that each year the 

 rank of the baseball and football players was 

 lower than that of the other students, the 

 difference varying from one per cent, to five 

 per cent. For the whole five years the average 

 rank of all athletes in all studies was 77.57; 

 that of all other students was 80.37. 



All the varied secondary schools for which 

 I have adequate returns show similar records. 

 At Bridgton Academy, a rural school of the 

 old type, the ranks for four years show that 

 the athletes are one per cent, below the other 

 students. At Thomaston, a typical high 

 school for small cities, the athletes for four 

 years fell thre.e per cent, below the others. 



