Harvard-Yale Football.

The game today between Harvard and Yale is one of a series which has extended intermittently from November, 1875. In all, eighteen games have been played, and of these Harvard has won three and tied two. The victories were in 1875, 1890 and 1898. In the first of these games Yale was handicapped by playing under rules to which she was unaccustomed.

The first game of the Harvard and Yale series was played at New Haven, November 13, 1875. Harvard had formed a football club three years before, but the Universities could not agree upon a code of rules to govern the contest. Up to this time, Yale's game had consisted solely in kicking, while Harvard's allowed running with the ball, holding and passing. Yale made a concession and played under rules with which she was unfamiliar. As a result she was beaten, and the score, by the old system, was four goals and two touchdowns to nothing. In this game fifteen men played on a side.

The next year, playing for the first time with eleven men, Yale won by a score of one goal to nothing. Harvard made two touchdowns, but by previous agreement, these did not count. In 1877 Yale again wanted to play with elevens, but the Association to which Harvard belonged prescribed fifteen players. The game could not therefore be arranged. The next year however, Yale yielded to the demands of the Association, and games were played with fifteens until 1880, when the eleven was finally adopted.

Yale lost no games to Harvard from 1878 to 1890. In 1879 there was a draw, and in 1885 intercollegiate football was forbidden at Harvard. In 1888 Harvard was compelled to forfeit the game, since the faculty would not allow the eleven to play in New York, while the Yale team was not allowed to play out of that city.

After a record of ten straight defeats and one draw, the Harvard team, captained by Arthur Cumnock, defeated the Yale eleven in 1890. This was the first victory clearly due to superior playing. The score was 12 to 6.

But in 1891, 1892 and 1893 Harvard was unable to score, while Yale made ten points in 1891, and six points in both 1892 and 1893. In 1892, by a very questionable decision, Harvard was deprived of a touchdown that would have tied the score. At Springfield in 1894, Harvard was again defeated by the score of 12-4, in one of the hardest fought contests in the history of football.

After the Springfield game athletic relations between the two universities were broken off, and were not resumed again until 1897. In that year a tie game was played at Cambridge, in which neither side scored. Last year Harvard defeated Yale at New Haven by a score of 17-0 in a game in which Harvard proved herself superior to her opponent in every respect.