In after years, I may say for the last 25 years, I have been growing heretical on that subject. The body is not mere muscles, the body has a vital side, and these vital powers are involuntary ones. The muscles may be affected by the will, and all physical training, as I take it, consists in getting the will to take possession of the whole physical side. This is the case with almost every system of physical training. They think there is no limit to putting the will in the entire body. I think that we are in a way to discover that limit. Out of our experience we are going to have a science and I think that science is going to discover that there is a very sharp limit to putting the will into the body.

Then we shall have a series of prohibitions. We will say you must not exercise so long, must not exercise after a meal, etc. The heart movement is involuntary. Suppose we exercise the will power so as to stop the movement of the heart. Certainly this is very dangerous. The heart and especially the vital powers ought not to be interfered with by the will. We should keep our will back from this limit and anybody who has found out where his limit is ought not to exceed that limit.

This is merely the warning I feel impelled to give whenever I am present at a discussion of this kind.

ARE INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS TO STAY AT CORNELL?

PROF. BURT G. WILDER, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

[Prof. Wilder was unable to be present, but contributed a very full expression of his views in the following paper, which was received too late for use in the discussion.]

The writer has been much impressed by the following events, statements and expressions of opinion:

1 During the present term the baseball nine have been absent for about one fifth of the time of instruction.

2 While in attendance here they have participated in 14 match games with nines from abroad.

3 Among the 24 games played here and abroad, 17 were with "amateurs" and seven with "professionals."

4 During the college year just closing the two papers that are supposed to represent the purely literary element (as distinguished from the Crank, the organ of the departments of applied science) have been occupied largely by athletic chronicles, by appeals for attendance upon the games and for subscriptions, spiced in the daily with denunciations of the unresponsive, and inuendoes or open complaints against other institutions.

5 According to an editorial in the Cornell era for May 30," when the team left Ithaca, it was confidently expected that a graduate student of last year was to meet them on the trip and alternate with Mr in the pitcher's box."

[The writer is informed by the manager that this was necessary on account of the inability of one of the pitchers to accompany the team, and that it was acceptable to the teams played with.]

6 There is an indebtedness of over $300 on account of the nine of last year, with little prospect of a commensurate surplus this

season.

7 The graduate treasurer reports (the Era for May 23) that the year's disbursements for football are about $1,800; that there are debts of nearly $300, and a claim by the former manager for a slightly greater amount.

8 There are navy debts of several hundred dollars from last year, and the Era of May 23 announced that "only a little more than $3,200 has been subscribed and not over $1,700 paid in." Printed appeals for aid are abroad and it is hoped that the "unsatisfactory state of the finances" may be relieved somewhat by a dramatic benefit at commencement time.

9 What is the total annual cost of the crews and teams may be inferred in a general way from the above; no one questions that in the past there have been extravagance and mismanagement for which the present managers and specially the experienced and conscientious graduate treasurer are not responsible.

The member of the faculty who has expressed himself most enthusiastically in their favor (the Era, Jan. 27, 1888) has declared that "the only obstacle to success in athletics is the extraordinary apathy of the whole student body." In view of the above exhibit, is there evidence of any material change in sentiment ?

10 Whatever their causes and extent, these unfulfilled obligations constitute a reproach which all friends of the university would wish to see removed.

11 "The athleticism of the present age is, in the opinion of the writer, not conducive either to long life or to the enjoyment of good health. The element of keen and exciting competition which enters into all our outdoor sports and amusements, the pitting of one player against another or of teain against team of the members of one educational institution against those of another, giving rise to contests carried on with an eagerness wholly out of proportion to the importance of the event, all tend to produce undue exertion

of the muscles and overstrain of the viscera, which are bound sooner or later to bring ont bad results. Professional athletes (including prize-fighters, wrestlers, baseball and lacrosse players, gymnasts) are short-lived, have emphysema, and hypertrophy of the heart, and a large proportion of them die of phthisis (Tracy), a disease which the writer regards as being the most common cause of death in runners." Dr R. L. MacDonnell: Our reference handbook of the medical sciences vol. 5, p. 276; article, Hygiene of occupations. 12" We regret that President Eliot should imply that the intercollegiate competitions can not be absolutely abolished. Nothing is simpler than an edict to that effect, and we believe that it is Harvard's mission to utter it."- Nation, Feb. 9, 1888.

13 "The censor who points out a better way at the same time that he denounces the bad way, is the only one who will be listened to while he smites." Nation, March 14, 1889.

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Fully recognizing the risk of being told that he knows nothing of the subject and is hence unqualified to judge, the writer frankly admits that (although he heartily participated in baseball and foot ball at the Brookline, Mass., high school), he has never witnessed an intercollegiate race or game; this has been mainly for fear of becoming prejudiced against them. He has however kept himself informed through the columns of the college papers, in the certainty that any possible rosy tinge would be reflected therein.

Thus illuminated, the writer has commented upon the subject in his lectures on hygiene (1868-1888) and in the successive editions of the Health notes for students (1870-1890) with a consistency which he feels deserved a more popular cause; his sincerity rather than any more acceptable attribute probably led the editors of the Era to invite him among other members of the faculty to formulate his views in that journal for Jan. 20, 1888. The further and final — remarks that he now is moved to make may properly be introduced by that article:

In the Register, the official announcement of the university, it is distinctly implied that the provisions for "physical training and development" are made in order that students may be sounder in body than they otherwise might be, and may thus employ their minds to better advantage for their own sake and for the credit of the institution.

It is nowhere intimated that these facilities are, or that any others may be, given in order that individuals, groups, classes or details from the university at large, may be enabled to prepare for contests of any

kind, in or out of college. Attention is called to the above, to show that the burden of proof to the contrary rests entirely with those who hold that the welfare of the university depends upon concessions by the faculty and contributions by the students for the sake of a semiprofessional athleticism.

It may be inferred that, in my mind, there are "athletics and athletics." It is to be feared that all do not draw the distinctions with any practical clearness, and that the community suffers from this particular form of "the great bad."

I wish that every student, without distinction of sex, might be something of an athlete, and even shine rather brightly in some one direction. I should like a weekly or at least a monthly competition between individuals, either merely as such or as representing different natural groups, modes of work or preparation. After a few years of this sort of athletics, broad in scope, and generous in spirit, I believe there would be a manifest improvement in our health and scholarship; there might be many like our twice elected fellow, Summers, to exemplify the rigor with which the faculty habitually "discourage" athletes.

Very different, as it seems to me, are the conditions and effects of that kind of athleticism which pits class against class and college against college. Aside from the wholly artificial and non-significant nature of those assemblages, races and match-games seem to foster undesirable sentiments and actions, and almost inevitably interfere with regular mental work; it is probable that each year there are many who wish, too late, that they had made different use of the time, money or strength which thoughtlessness or importunity had led them to devote to class or college contests.

What compensating good results from intercollegiate athletics? The "crews" and "team" embrace perhaps 50 out of our 1,000 students. Admitting, for the sake of argument, what is far from proven, that “training" is conducive to real and permanent health, it affects directly only five per cent of the whole number of students and those, too, who are already exceptionally sound and strong, leaving to the vast majority the dubious privileges of supplying money -and noise.

The apparent claims of this form of athleticism are thus reduced to two; viz., (1) that certain students "gifted with an uncontrollable exuberance of energy" are thereby kept out of mischief," and (2) that the institution is "advertised" by its victories and even by its honorable defeats.

As to the first claim, whatever may be said of other institutions, it may fairly be questioned whether this university was founded for persons who can not direct their powers into orderly channels. [The dangerous classes" should not be tolerated as beneficiaries of a university.]

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It is equally doubtful whether those who are attracted mainly by the reverberations of the "Cornell yell" contribute materially to the excellence of our scholarship or behavior.

Were it conceivable that intercollegiate champions or their backers should ever constitute a majority of our trustees or faculty, the logical apotheosis of a recently expressed view would require that each matriculant should agree to be assessed regularly for the support of certain persons who might perhaps be retained pro forma on our rolls but from whom should be asked no more intellectual effort than was expected of the gladiators at Rome; a ludo ad ludicrum.

To sum up: The faculty may wisely facilitate exhibitions of individual strength and skill, but should make no official provision for intercollegiate or class contests. The students would do well to take an active part in the former and should be willing to pay for entertainments which they wish to attend as spectators only; but each should reserve the right to determine where his time and his money will do the most good, and hesitate long before investing either in enterprises which are very gratuitously assumed to be essential to the "glory of Cornell."

In estimating the value of the foregoing as independent testimony it should be noted that the writer had not then seen the discussions of the subject in the annual reports of the president of Harvard university; that for 1886-7 is a most formidable arraignment and is here reproduced:

"Football, baseball and rowing are liable to abuses which do not attach to the sports themselves so much as to their accompaniments under the present system of intercollegiate competitions. These abuses are extravagant expenditure by and for the ball players and the crews; the interruption of college work which exaggerated interest in the frequent ball matches causes; betting; trickery condoned by a public opinion which demands victory; and the hysterical demonstrations of the college public over successful games. These follies can best be kept in check - they can not be eradicated - by reducing the number of intercollegiate competitions to the lowest terms."