THE CROSS-COUNTRY DEFEATS.

During the past month the University cross-country team has been badly defeated in three races, in consequence of which the opinion has already been expressed, even in a Harvard publication, that the team is not properly qualified to represent Harvard, and should therefore no longer be allowed to enter intercollegiate competitions. This is the unsportsmanlike spirit with which basketball, after a slow decline, was last year buried by action of the Athletic Committee. It is the spirit which, if persisted in, will kill any sport, no matter how flourishing it may once have been.

This hostile attitude is unjustified in the case of cross-country, both because the sport is in itself most excellent, and because it serves as a training school for the distance runners who represent one-sixth of the strength of one of our four major teams. A glance at the results of the intercollegiate cross-country runs and long distance events of the last seven years, compared in another column, will show what the development of a strong cross-country team has done for Cornell. We believe that we are justified in assuming that the same advantages are at our disposal, if we will only seize them. Moreover, the coaches assert that cross-country training is the only means to produce first-class distance runners, and yet some contemplate the abolition of this sport. If experience had not proved otherwise, it would seem unnecessary to say that the trouble with our cross-country teams lies solely in inadequate coaching, and we believe that if they were as well provided for in this respect as our other teams, they would leave no loophole for the question of abolishing the sport.