The Manly Foot Ball.

An old graduate writes the follow letter to a leading paper in behalf of foot ball:

As a lover of the good and manly game of foot ball, allow me to enter my protest against any rash condemnation of the game. I am sadly aware that the present tendency is to emasculate all games and exercises, and frown on strength and courage as old fashioned things, relics of the dark ages; to teach our youth that all games requiring these qualities are brutal and degrading.

Many years ago, before many of the college professors who decry foot ball were born, I was taught by an episode in ancient history a lesson I have never forgotten. As it is probably now omitted from the prescribed instruction, I will recall it briefly: A certain nation was waging war, and their opponents learned that fear of disfigurement took the place of courage, so, aiming at the face they carried off the victory.

Are not our good friends in danger of substituting for manly indifference to mere bodily ills, and an indomitable courage against all odds, a cowardly dread of all hurts? Do we not see that that is the case in the growing popularity of the safe but effeminate lawn tennis, and the substitution of artificial gymnastics for the healthier field sports of our transatlantic ancestors? The long line of puny, pale-faced, pimply youth to be seen to day in our midst must be protected; they must be put back in the nursery where big boys cannot bruise their sickly frames. How refreshing it would be to see a foot ball game conducted on the principle of the modern nurses! The players should be neatly attired (because the present costume is "rowdyish"). No ball more deadly than a pig's bladder should be allowed. Player number one bows politely to the others and says, "Please pass me the ball." When he gets it in his gloved hands, all other players retire to a safe distance, and after asking permission of the referee, and saying his prayers, he kicks the ball. No shouting is allowed, because it scares nervous players (and all our boys are preternaturally nervous), and besides it irritates the throat and predisposes to the lung troubles so rife in this climate. Any player who accidentally strikes another shall be at once arrested, taken to the Municipal Court and fined one hundred dollars for aggravated assault. The "gentlemanliness" of the game shall be preserved, and the wearied players carried home in coaches.

Now, I have seen many of the foot ball games played in this neighborhood during the last twenty years. I have also seen games at New Haven and

Princeton, and I have observed a gradual failure of scientific playing among the college boys; their "teams" do not plan a campaign and work it out, they trust to talk by judge and captain too much; but worse than all this, I have seen a lack of courage. There has been one man on the Yale team that has put to rout the Harvard players whenever he approached; and when in a tussle two men are down, the cowards are ready enough to jump on the pile. If irregularities occur, I believe they are due to want of pluck, and that that want is encouraged by the weak cry of brutality when any one gets hurt. I will go further and say that I have not unfrequently examined foot ball players during the playing season, and found their bodies bruised and scarred, and I have honored them for the courage they have shown in danger. It takes a brave man to play foot ball constantly, and I believe it is well to have some game where courage is needed-there is little enough of it in the community.