The foregoing became the basis of an extended editorial in the Nation for Feb. 9, 1888, from which are taken the following extracts: "Sports need not be abandoned, but just as they will no longer be marbles or peg-top, so they should be subordinated to the main object for which men go to college. The dignity of the institution should beget a corresponding dignity and self-restraint and steady application in the beneficiary. The unspeakable importance of these years for the cultivation of the faculties and the formation of character in preparation for the struggle for existence, should sober and steady all but those already corrupted by the taint of wealth. But it can not be denied that childishness is fostered by intercollegiate contests, not only in the shape of hysterical demonstrations over successful games,' but in giving such a predominance to the athletic interest that recreation and enjoyment, or the having what is called a good time, becomes the most potent attraction which a college education holds out. It is clear that nothing could be more opposed to the efficiency of the college training than an habitual substitution, for pride in the intellectual standing and ample equipment of alma mater, of pride in her muscular supremacy. Do we not, in fact, see colleges which are lagging in the race of improved methods and enlarged scope of instruction, hug the delusion that this is offset by the trophies of the sporting ground? The intercollegiate games bring the college world down to the level of the professional gambler. It is incontestable that students whose minds are constantly filled with the thought of intercollegiate rivalry at sports, follow with the greatest zest the course of the professional matches all over the country, turn to them first in the morning paper, make them staple of their conversation. This is bad enough, but unavoidably they catch the tone of these vulgar performances, they practice or are on their guard against 'trickery condoned by public opinion,' and above all they fall easily into habits of betting on the result. The ill feeling thus engendered, the charges of foul play, unfair umpiring, spying, concealment, lying, are disgustingly visible on the grounds or in the echoes of the college press. No man ever felt elevated by witnessing such encounters, and their degrading influence speaks both to the eye and to the understanding. Great masses of young men can not thus be brought together with professional excitement and manners without abusing the મર feather's world die ont. Again, we of an ineriturtion which has done all that as do to tempt men to exervise. Bat it is oderaduates en rot among themselves ind all enestry for any mood end of sport. The rabbish kanda“ needs to be put aside. It is not incumbent on any mage to wash that it students jamp one foot higher, run one minute any other way approximate a receding standard of Health may be attained, and sound enstitufor, by tooderate, well-directed exertion without thought of any our pet for. So long as this is so, the duty of the college is to turn tre arudentia trungute to things spiritual; to encourage early manlie entrance age is steadily rising; to discourage respect for esentials of college life above its main excuse for being; and to put an end to all occasions for unfriendliness and bitterness between institutions whose only emulation should be to turn ont, at tre lest possible cost, the highest type of civilized man.” The following, from the New York World of Feb. 5, 1888, are extracts from replies of college presidents to the inquiry of the Boston Globe as to the effects of athletic victories upon the attendance of students. Co.by: "I have known of several who were much influenced by thin cause." Trinity: "The students report that success in baseball, boating, etc., has very great influence with certain classes of boys; I am inclined to agree with them." Williams: "Most of those who go to college for athletic honors will choose the university where the competition and distinction in this field are so much greater.' Cornell: "We have no means of knowing that attendance has ever been influenced by athletic victories or defeats." Yale: "While it is possible that the increase during the last two years may be in a very small degree due to Yale's athletic victories, yet probably it may be traced to more important causes." The replies from Columbia, Brown, Amherst, Bowdoin, Oberlin, and Boston university are in the negative. Harvard: "I have never been able to make out that success in intercollegiate competitions had any such effect either here or elsewhere." From the Institute of Technology the apparently affirmative response is accompanied with what Bothwell, in Scott's Old mortality, called a "qualification." "To put it upon the lowest possible scale, college athletics bring young men into colleges just as truly as flaming posters and brass bands and illuminated entrances bring young men and old into theaters." But President Walker here evidently refers to those "young men who have no decided inclination toward college and no plans for the future in which college training constitutes an essential feature;" and elsewhere he is reported to have added: "Whether those who act in any appreciable degree under such an impulse (as athletics) bring much strength to the college or derive much virtue from it is not now the question." On this point the present writer may be permitted to express the opinion, based upon somewhat careful observations since the opening of the university, that (with some honorable exceptions among the actual players and oarsmen rather than among the constant spectators and the betters) so far as order, scholarship and reputation are concerned, it would have been well for Cornell to pay the tuition at any other institution of such as have come or remained here wholly or mainly on account of intercollegiate athletic contests. There will now be given brief remarks from various sources with occasional commentaries; some apply to the general question, others to particular phases of it; some to all institutions, others more directly to Cornell; the writer is profoundly gratified at the considerable number of cases of his entire agreement with the views of his colleagues and of the editors of the college papers, and ventures to hope. for their cooperation in at least the immediate purpose of this article. "The present question of collegiate athletics is not whether manly sports should be encouraged, but what are fair and manly limitations both in the regulation of such sports and in devotion to them. Walking is a noble and wholesome exercise. But does it follow that walking 5,000 miles in 5,000 continuous hours is noble and wholesome? Bacon's rule of moderation is the manly rule."- Easy chair, Harper's magazine, Feb. 1890. "No more vigorous stimulus and excitement can be furnished to the great mass of students than is found in the good fellowship and competition of the friendly club, society, class or college wherein all are made safely and hilariously to forget the hard pressure of brain work and compel a better cultivation of the organic and animal faculties."- PROF. HITCHCOCK, sr, Amherst Program for June 24, 1890. "I would put gymnastics into the curriculum of every college, and would make a physical examination as prominent a part of the preliminary examinations as are now those in the preparatory studies." -PROF. R. H. THURSTON, Era, Jan. 20, 1888. "The mania for athletics in England seemed to me to have perverted, so far as a good many of the students are concerned, the objects of the university, set up a totally false standard of excellence, and almost misdirected the aim of life. Games and exercises, carried beyond a certain measure, though they may not injure the body like some other indulgences, are but dissipations to the mind."-PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH, A trip to England. See also the Era of Feb. 9, 1889, for a fuller discussion of Modern athleticism by the same generous friend of this university. "There is a disposition abroad to allow athletics to usurp the position of an end in themselves, instead of remaining an important means to a useful end."- Chambers journal, Aug. 1890, p. 470. See also the Atlantic, Jan. 1882. "I am opposed to intemperance of any kind; the student who devotes himself intemperately to athletics is likely to fail of the object for which he came to the university."-PRES. ADAMS, Era, Jan. 20, 1888. "The sole object of a gymnasium and of all our attention to athletics should be to keep the body in a perfect physical condition for doing the work of education."-PRES. ADAMS, Annual address, Sun, Sept. 28, 1888. "If the maintenance of college spirit were the sole object of intercollegiate sports, I would not commend them; nor, if intercol legiate sports were the sole object of college athletics, would I commend those." PROF. B. I. WHEELER, Era, Jan. 27, 1888, p. 175. "If we could discover the one man in college who was working harder for success than any other student in the same institution, we should undoubtedly find in his hand a book and not a ball."- REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, Harvard baccalaureates 1890, as reported in the Boston Advertiser. "Last summer our crew, though not victorious, strove so hard for victory that the men fainted in their boat. I can conceive of no greater devotion to their alma mater than that."- Address of the president of Columbia college, after his first chapel service, Feb. 6, 1890, as reported in the Tribune, Feb. 7, 1890. "Athletics leave a vast majority, say 956 out of 1,000 to take care of the scholarship."- Sun, Jan. 9, 1888. "College athletics should be founded on a basis of the greatest good to the largest number, not an ideal of over-exertion which defeats its own ends."- Sun, Nov. 22, 1890. "The general and moderate participation of large numbers of students in athletic exercise is of far greater consequence than the preparation of a few specialists, pleasant as the latter distinction may be." PROF. H. S. WHITE, Era, Jan. 27, 1888, p. 176. "From the educational point of view, the main object of intercollegiate contests is to increase the number of students who habitually take part in manly sports; and the real test is therefore the amount of activity on the home grounds. A strict application of this principle would exclude intercollegiate matches between freshmen."- Report of the president of Harvard, 1889-90, p. 17. "Whenever any team or management becomes more anxious to win a game over a rival than careful to conduct the contest in a spirit of entire fairness, the greatest danger to which intercollegiate athletics are exposed has been reached."- Era, May 30, 1891. "The average student is not urged or incited to enter the sharp competition of league, intercollegiate or national sports."-PROF. HITCHCOCK, sr, Amherst program for June 24, 1890. "The majority of athletes are average students. But how can an average student get along in the university, if he devotes three or four hours a day to careful training?"- Cornell Sun, Jan. 9, 1888. "It is due to class spirit that the interest in athletics is kept alive."- Sun, Oct. 30, 1889. The writer believes he is not alone in regarding the "class," in a large institution like Cornell, as a heterogeneous aggregation of |