Foot Ball: Sport and Training.

In the North American Review for December, Mr. Joseph Hamblen Sears '89, speaks under the above heading about the moral, mental and physical effects upon athletics of the game, as it is now played at Harvard. Mr. Sears was captain of the 'varsity eleven in the fall of '88, and hence his views on the subject are very far from being mere theories. A young "buck," he says, comes to college full of life, and of the sense of his new-found freedom; he soon falls in with a crowd of others just like himself, and this crowd casts about for an outlet for their animal spirits. Then, before any harm is done, comes the call for candidates for the various foot ball teams. They join practice squads and are forced to keep regular hours, and to put by smoking and drinking and all their newly-acquired vices.

It is difficult to realize perfectly how much wholesome restraint such an athletic sport exerts over new men at college, coming at the time when they are weakest. The need of good exercise is the cause of much of the danger of a university life. What could be a better preparation for morality and health and success than the hour's exercise on Jarvis and the hot and cold shower and rub down that follow? Three months of it can easily add twenty pounds to a man's physique, and 10 per cent. to his examination marks, and 50 percent. to his manly self-respect and ability to use his common sense. The game is an education itself for it gives a man "certain necessary qualities that do not come from much reading of books." "Active thinking, self-reliance, power to carry out what is attempted, and ability to decide at once and in the right way - these are not qualities to be disregarded, nor is any training that tends to perfect them " The mere fact that "faculties appoint committees to guide and properly restrain athletics, is evidence of a recognized importance." The great trouble is in the alleged brutality of foot ball which is unscrupulously exaggerated by newspapers.

In the more important games of last season, there is scarcely an instance of rough, brutal, or unfair play. The report of the Athletic Committee in 1888, shows this often-disregarded fact: that out of 365 students who played foot ball during the two months, (165 of whom practiced every day) only seven received at all serious injuries. "Nor are those, that do occur, more lasting than some of the moral and mental injuries that the game helps to prevent."

The presence science of the game has done away with the old brutality. Moreover the training that comes to man through athletics stands him in good stead in after life Let him "play foot ball hard if he can, - it is better than hard dissipation."