AlGlST 7, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



167 



inimical to academic ideals and distinctly 

 debasing to academic morals. 



Pray do not misunderstand me. I am 

 not opposed to physical culture and athletic 

 sports. Scarcely any element of education 

 is so impoi'tant as the attainment of a 

 healthy balance between the intellectual 

 and the physical functions of men. The 

 ancient maxim of a sound mind in a sound 

 body is more fitting; now than ever before. 

 "We know or ought to know much better 

 than our ancestors to what extent clear 

 thought and right action depend on good 

 lungs, sound hearts and unclogged livers. 

 My protest is not against school and college 

 athletics as such, but against athletics as 

 they are now generally carried on, and 

 especially against intercollegiate contests. 

 As now practiced, athletics seem to me to 

 defeat the object they are intended to at- 

 tain. They cultivate almost exclusively 

 the men who are usually more in need of 

 intellectual training, and they ignore al- 

 most completely the men who are phys- 

 ically defective. The latter are only 

 permitted to stand by and whoop for 

 their alma mater and for her gladiators. 

 Strangely enough, too, the advisers and 

 trainers of our teams and crews are not 

 always men to whom good judgment would 

 commit the training of youth, but they are 

 often men as ignorant of physical culture 

 as they are of mental and moral culture; 

 their names, indeed, are commonly better 

 known to the patrons of the tvirf and the 

 ring than they are to the patrons of the 

 cap and the gown. 



The usually keen Anierican sense of 

 humor seems to have failed us in these 

 matters. Thus the reporters appear to 

 think it essential to state that every dis- 

 tinguished college graduate who dies was 

 a noted athlete in his day, and they often 

 ascribe great prowess to men of a notably 

 opposite physique. One might infer also, 



from the prominence given to the small 

 number of 'punters' and 'half-backs' of 

 the day, that they are the only college men 

 who are likely to succeed in life. The 

 sporting populace and the sporting alumni 

 go wild with enthusiasm over intercollegi- 

 ate contests, while the press, in a fashion 

 similar to that followed in describing prize 

 fights, devotes much more space to these 

 ephemeral events than it does to all other 

 educational affairs combined. It is no 

 wonder then that the light-headed under- 

 graduate attires himself like a stable-boy 

 and affects the manners and vices of a 

 cowboy without aspiring to the virtues of 

 either. He may be excused also for enter- 

 taining the hypothesis that colleges are 

 athletic clubs, and that his professors, as 

 suggested by Mr. Dooley, will proceed 

 leisurely to take for him the requisite 

 minimum of formalities leading to a de- 

 gree. 



There is a darker side of this question 

 which calls for something more than a 

 quickened sense of humor. It is the vast 

 expense entailed bj^ these extra-academic 

 operations. Fifty to a hundred thousand 

 dollars per annum are certainly not needed 

 by a college or a university to provide ade- 

 quate physical training for a few athletes 

 and amusement for a few hundreds of men 

 who can not find health and pleasure in 

 more useful occupations. In so far as 

 educational institutions tacitly encourage 

 the practice of this sort of political econ- 

 omy by students, the majority of whom 

 have yet to try their hands at self-support, 

 they must be held guilty of promoting a 

 degree of extravagance which in other 

 walks of life is usually associated with 

 open corruption. 



But the fashions, the follies and the fads 

 of college men, like those of any other lim- 

 ited community, play an insignificant role 

 in the larger drama of life. However ini- 



