To Commercialize Football.

Lovers of the amateur spirit in athletics will regard with dismay the announcement of the proposed formation in New York city of a professional football team whose ranks are to be recruited from former college stars. The reports of the organization of this team, engineered largely by Charley Brickley, the former Harvard football captain, state that already many noted college athletes have joind the new team to be called the New York Giants, and that games with a number of the professional teams already formed throughout the country are to be part of the season's program.

If successful in making a popular appeal, professional football will deal a heavy blow at the spirit which has made football almost unique among college sports. Football has obtained its position as the college sport par excellence largely because of its freedom from the taint of commercialism. By nature a rough, and at times a brutal game, football is never theless dominated by the amateur spirit, and the thousands of boys and young men who play it in our schools and colleges do it for love of the game, and not from any ulterior consideration of future gain. The springing up of professional football teams will inevitably result in boys playing football at college in order that later they may receive flattering offers from the professional clubs. The game of football, at present the precious heritage of our schools and colleges, will then be turned over to those who regard it merely in terms of dollars and cents.

Far better would it be for all concerned if the plans for the professional football team were dropped. Surely these former college players can earn a respectable living in some other way than by exploiting their undergraduate athletic reputation.  Boston Transcript.