Walter Camp on College Sports.

In the last number of Harper's Weekly Walter Camp has an article on professionalism in college athletics. Mr. Camp says that professionalism is certainly gaining ground in all athletic sports and especially in colleges. He is in sympathy with the action taken by the Intercollegiate Foot-ball Association, and recommends even stronger legislation. He suggests the plan of debarring every man from playing on university teams during his first year at college. Though this might pre vent a certain amount of professionalism, it seems unjust that anyone coming to college with an honest purpose should not be allowed to represent the college on its teams merely because he is a freshman. Mr. Camp's article is on the whole a clear statement of the present condition of affairs and his position is well taken. Below is a quotation from the article:

"Any college man must feel that he would rather play against a graduate - a man who for four years had lived a college life, had become imbued with the college spirit, had learned to look at matters from the collegian's standpoint - than to play against a man who was not a graduate, but who perhaps had been induced to enter a university for a short season in order to take part in some sport in which he was proficient. The tendency to confound the use of the term professional with the idea of skilful through long years of practice has led many to think of a graduate player as a professional player. The man whom we wish to keep out of college athletics is not the skillful man, but the man who barters his skill for pecuniary gain, whether in the shape of actual cash in hand paid or of financial aid extended indirectly; and this individual is not so likely to appear in the undergraduate department. I don't for a moment think that it has yet reached the ultimate point, but when that ultimate point is reached, it is this, that a man who begins by selling his college may some day find himself selling an individual act in a particular contest - selling races, selling games."

"As I have mentioned earlier in this article, my own preference is for even more severe legislation, and the limiting of eligibility to those who have spent one full year at the university, and who are regularly connected with any department Whatever action is taken, the rule will undoubtedly be modified after a year's experiment, but will be nevertheless of radical benefit."