THE ACTION OF THE COMMITTEE.

The reasons for the action of the committee are given in the following article which we take from the Times:

"Prof. Norton, of the committee, says in substance that he does not desire to have the action of the committee misunderstood. The changes insisted upon were meant absolutely to do away with the objectionable features. Therefore the referee must be not only opposed to the game as played at present, but he must have absolute control of it, and the punishment must operate against the whole team, to diminish its score, if need be, or it would not be efficacious. The action of the committee in this one case is not intended to affect any future action which the committee may desire to take; it applies only to the proposed Yale game. Prof. Norton hopes when the season is over that a convention of old Harvard foot-ball men may be called, in order to see what may be done to improve the sport.

Dr. Sargent, the director of the gymnasium, another member of the committee, says that warning players under the present rules is a mere farce, for the referee's attention is often distracted, sometimes purposely, by a team's umpire, and then a player may entirely disable another and be warned only once for it. Again there are so many men engaged that individuals may be warned here and there and the play of a team not affected at all. Allowing three warnings, as under the present rules, is as though in sparring three blows under the belt were allowed before disqualification. The time of taking this stand was at first deemed inopportune by the committee, on account of its nearness to the end of the season, but in view of the wide discussion which the action of the committee has caused, the result may be more desirable in the end. The position of the Harvard faculty has always been peculiar. At other colleges athletics are allowed to take their own course; at Harvard physical training is recognized as an important branch of education, and the faculty, therefore, 'interferes.' Foot-ball is too good a sport and too valuable an exercise to be allowed to degenerate into a contest of roughness and trickery."