LETTER FROM CAPTAINS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

We wish to warn every man in the University who is on any athletic squad, or who intends to try for a team in the future, that he must keep up in his studies and be absolutely regular in attending lectures while in Cambridge. Failure to do this on the part of a few men has injured the chances of a number of University and Freshman teams this year. The worst example this spring has been the 1908 crew. Two of the men in the first boat got on probation after the season had begun, and this loss necessitated a general rearrangement of the crew, and greatly retarded its development. It is impossible to believe that athletes would so neglect their work as to get on probation, or that undergraduate sentiment would tolerate such virtual desertion of a team, if the extent of the harm done was fully realized.

It is now so late in the year that there is only a remote chance of getting off probation for the men now on, who might if in good standing, materially increase Harvard's chances for victory this spring. But it is the imperative duty of every man now in training, and of every man who proposes to come out for a team next fall, to do his College work faithfully to the end of the year, and to get a good standing in his final examinations.

Since it is fully as disgraceful for an athlete to get on probation as to break training, and should be so regarded, it has been decided that next year men who are found on probation when they are needed for a team will be considered to have broken training, and their names will be published. O. D. FILLEY.   C. W. RANDALL.   W. A. SCHICK.