AMATEUR ATHLETICS 



555 



is a great distinction between a professional 

 teacher or promoter and a professional athlete. 

 Also between either of these and a part pro- 

 fessional, and the same standard of ethics can 

 never with justice be made to fit all alike. 



It certainly is right to teach physical training. 

 It may not be wrong to make one's living by 

 publicly exhibiting one's physical ability on the 

 stage or in the circus or on the athletic field, 

 but it surely is not so lofty an ambition as the 

 teaching profession. Likewise, there is a great 

 difference between men who are working on 

 salaries in shop, store or office who make a little 

 money on the side by teaching and another in 

 like position who makes a little on the side 

 by competing in sports for money. 



Therefore, it should be our duty to foster the 

 teaching of physical training, but to make it 

 impossible to get money in competition. 



5. The question of requiring athletes to be 

 registered and games to be sanctioned dis- 

 courages sport and puts it still further on a 

 commercial basis, as though this were needed 

 before athletes could have some fun! 



6. The practice of making inducements to 

 get great crowds to witness sports of any kind 

 is wrong. It was the destruction of the ancient 

 games. The Coliseum appealed to the debas- 

 ing qualities in man, and always will. This is 

 the decline of football. Show! show! show! 

 Is that what athletics are for ? No, but rather to 

 participate in. 



It fosters pride in the contestant who loves 

 to "show off" before an audience. Away with 

 the seating capacity. Enlarge the facilities for 

 wholesale participation in enjoyable sports. 

 Do away with need of detail supervision. 



7. Another wrong is shown in the strenuous 

 life of training to turn out a winning team. The 

 appeal to maintain the supremacy of an institu- 

 tion in athletics is pride in a false standard for 

 an institution. Moreover, it misuses athletics 

 for wrong ends by inducing men to work, train 

 and agonize to beat the other team when with- 

 out it the athlete would not enter that sport. 

 It is no sport for him. He is working for his 

 association or college and the conclusion is 

 that if it is work he should get paid for adver- 

 tising. Thus at one stroke this places so-called 

 sport out of the realm of physical pleasure or 

 recreation, and shows again that it is commer- 

 cial. 



8. The standard of sport in. any community 

 rests with the personnel of physical instructors 

 and promoters of sport in any locality. No out- 

 side organization can control sport there except 

 through them. It is their business. They are 

 more largely interested in that community than 



any one else can be, and the standard of sport 

 must rest with them. It is the spirit of vile 

 persecution and bigotry for any other company 

 of men to seek to step in and outlaw athletes 

 who do not live up to others' notions. Sport 

 for sport's sake is no idle slogan. In place of 

 the present self-styled governing bodies there is 

 needed an advisory and educative body, who, 

 in place of giving so much nervous energy to 

 police duty, shall teach and spread abroad ethics 

 of sport and who shall win to produce a wide- 

 spread participation in healthful and pleasur- 

 able physical exercises by seeking to influence 

 National, State and Municipal legislation in 

 establishing public gymnasiums, baths and 

 athletic fields under careful supervision. 



Away with narrowness, smailness and 

 bigotry of a sacred few. Give us a full, free, 

 joyous gospel of sport. Unknit thy brow, 

 slacken thine aching nerves. Work not at thy 

 play. Unloose the shackles. Come, let us en- 

 joy our pleasures. 



College Baseball and Lacrosse 



The opening of the intercollegiate baseball 

 serison brought two surprises — the drubbing of 

 the Yale team, the champions of 1905, by the 

 University of Pennsylvania nine and the 

 victory of Princeton over Cornell by 3 to 1. 

 Jackson, Yale's best pitcher, was substituted 

 by a youngster named Parsons, who lost the 

 game for the Elis. The U. P. boys played a 

 fast, clean game, their fielding being exception- 

 ally good compared with past performances. 

 The Tigers simply outplayed the Ithacans. 

 Byram, the Princeton pitcher, promises to 

 stand among the best college twirlers of the 

 year. 



Intercollegiate lacrosse opened well, showing 

 a marked increase in the interest in the game. 

 Although Yale and Princeton have yet to take 

 it up, it is being played in many of the smaller 

 colleges where before the game was not even 

 understood. The teams of the minor colleges 

 continue to show decided superiority, and 

 Swarthmore, as of old, heads the cla,ss. The 

 old intercollegiate league and the Inter-Uni- 

 versity League, composed of Columbia, Cor- 

 nell, Harvard and Pennsylvania, have amalga- 

 mated, to the decided advantage of the game 

 When the Elis and the Tigers get into line and 

 the teams of the larger colleges learn the game, 

 we should have some teams worthy of the best 

 Canadian talent. Lacrosse is a game for young 

 men with red blood in their veins, and though 

 there is ample opportunity for dirty playing, 

 it is, on the whole, a much superior game to our 

 present-day football. 



