The Committee's Report.

The following is the text of the report which the Athletic Committee presented to the faculty on Tuesday.

TO THE FACULTY OF HARVARD COLLEGE, GENTLEMEN :-On the 22 of Nov., 1883, the Committee on Athletics, believing that the game of foot ball had begun to degenerate into a brutal and dangerous contest, informed the Captain of the Harvard eleven that the team could not be allowed to take part in any further inter-collegiate match games until substantial changes in the rules had been made. According to the rules then existing, a player could back, throttle, butt, trip up, tackle below the hips. or strike an opponent with closed fist three times before he was sent from the field.

Changes in the rules were made immediately, and they were subsequently adopted by the Inter-collegiate Association. In June of the present year the Committee said to the Captain of the Harvard team for 1884, that the eleven would be allowed to play during the following season, on the understanding that the games should be regarded as a test whether or not the changes of rules had resulted in substantial change of the character of the game.

At the beginning of this season your Committee decided to attend the games of the Inter-collegiate Series and to observe them carefully in order to learn the precise nature of the game as played by college teams under the revised rules. We have attended four games, those of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton series, and one between Wesleyan and the University of Pennsylvania played in New York on the morning of Thanksgiving day for the third place among the college teams.

At each of the games we stationed ourselves in different parts of the field and observed and carefully noted what seemed to us the objectionable features of the play.

Two of the games, those in which the Harvard team took part, were very one-sided contests. In the Yale Princeton and Wesleyan-Pennsylvania games the opposing teams were very evenly matched. Of the four games the Yale Harvard game was the least objectionable, and the Westeyan-Pennsylvania was the worst.

It must be remembered, in considering what the Committee saw, that the players were all college students, presumably gentlemen, and were playing in public.

In every one of these games there was brutal fighting with the firsts where the men had to be separated by other players, or by the judges and referee, or by the bystanders and the police. We say one such case in the Harvard-Princeton game, two in the Harvard-Yale game, three in the Yale-Princeton game, and three in the Wesleyan-Pennsylvania game.

In addition to these fights there were numerous instances where a single blow was struck, instances that occurred in every one of the games. A man was felled by a blow in the face in the Harvard-Princeton game, in the Harvard-Yale game, in the Yale-Princeton game. In the Westeyan-Pennsylvania game a man was thrown unfairly, out of bounds, by an opposing player. Then, as he was rising, but before he was on his feet, his antagonist turned, struck him in the face and knocked him down, and returned in triumph with the ball.

In all of the games the manifestation of gentlemanly spirit was lacking -the spirit that scorned to take an unfair advantage of an opponent. The teams played to win by fair means or by foul.

Unfair play, often premeditated and sometimes concerted, was a permanent feature in all of the games, and although not always successful was rarely punished. Intentional offside play and unlawful interference with opponents who were not running with the ball, were the rule rather than the exception; and tackling below the hips, tripping, butting, tackling in touch (all of which are prohibited by the rules), were common and deliberate.

The game is demoralizing to the spectators mainly through its brutality; unfair play they usually fail to recognize. We often heard cries of "kill him." "break his neck" "slug him," "hit him," "knock him down," from those around us.

That the game is dangerous, needs no argument. In the Harvard-Princeton game, two men were hurt so badly that they had to be replaced by substitutes, and in the Yale-Princeton game at least three men were forced to withdraw. Slighter injuries, causing temporary cessation of hostilities, but not compelling the player to leave the field, were common, and cut and bruised faces, black eyes, and bloody noses were frequently seen.

The Rugby game of foot ball under the present rules, might perhaps be played with advantage where public opinion was strong enough to make deliberate attempts at unfair, or brutal play, impossible. There is, unfortunately, no such controlling sentiment among college students.

The nature of the game puts a premium on unfair play, inasmuch as such play is easy, is profitable if it succeeds, is unlikely to be detected by the referee, and if detected is very slightly punished.

If two teams are at all evenly matched, and one plays a gentlemanly and the other an unfair game, the self-respecting team will always be beaten.

The game is so complicated, so confused, and covers so much ground, that no referee, however honest and determined, can see half of what is going on, especially since the judges, who were originally intended to help him in securing fair play, have developed into captains of their teams, and purposely distract his attention and increase his difficulties.

In the four games which we attended, there were but two cases where a player was punished for brutal or unfair play. In several cases the team was punished by having a "down" given to the other side, but only twice was a man disqualified.

After deliberate investigation, we have become convinced that the game of foot ball, as at present played by college teams, is brutal, demoralizing to players and spectators, and extremely dangerous, and we do not believe that at the present time and with the prevailing spirit, any revision of the rules made by the Intercollegiate Association would be effective in removing these objectionable features.

We therefore recommend that all games of foot ball be prohibited to students of the College, except those played by our own men, on our own grounds, and that these shall be allowed only in case it shall prove possible to eliminate all objectionable features from the game.

We believe that foot ball, played in the proper spirit, under proper conditions, may be made one of the most valuable of college sports, and we should deprecate its permanent loss.

We have conferred with students interested in the game at a meeting where there was great unanimity of opinion concerning its present objectionable character, and have grounds for hope that means may be devised to make it a credit, in place of a disgrace, to the University.

JOHN WILLIAMS WHITE, Committee on Athletics.W. E. BYERLY, Committee on Athletics.D. A. SARGENT, Committee on Athletics.Cambridge, Dec. 2, 1884.