PRE-YALE GAMES

"The present policy in college football has not been the result of a deliberate plan. It has grown up by a consideration of the questions presented year by year, and is not based upon any principle recognized as imperative by faculties, alumni and spectators. The public interest in the sport, as a spectacle, has become general over the country, and has increased markedly since the war. It has tended to give excessive importance to college athletic contests. That intercollegiate matches have a distinct value in stimulating sports, which are the best form of physical exercise in youth, few people would be inclined to deny; but the single boat race between Oxford and Cambridge on the Thames, and the cricket match between those universities, supplemented in each case by a series of intramural contests, has been enough to stimulate unflagging interest in those sports among the students. Judging from the effect of the race at New London one may ask whether or not the same plan would be sufficient in football. The necessity of maintaining for this purpose a public spectacle attended by thousands of spectators every Saturday throughout the autumn is certainly not clear; and whether it ought to be maintained for any other object is a matter worth consideration. Like many other questions touching the direction of undergraduate life this is one that affects all American colleges, and it would be well for faculties, administrators and governing bodies to consider afresh the proper place of public intercollegiate athletic contests in the scheme of education." --President Lowell's Report.

However much the crowds which have attended the college football games in the past three seasons may have gratified the managers of athletic associations they have certainly caused no little anxiety to University administrators. They have assumed a place of vast importance in college affairs. During the vacation a number of lesser educational lights have attacked "college sport" and now President Lowell brings the question, even more urgently, to our attention.

In past editorials we expressed the belief that the justification of athletics, particularly at Harvard, was two fold: they served to make financially possible for all the students participation in some form of sport, and they served as the one tangible bond between Harvard men as such, particularly for those Harvard men who, because of immaturity, can not be bound together in any other way. Let us, in the light of these two factors, consider the question which is raised by President Lowell.

Obviously his tentative proposal would in no way affect the second point. One Yale football victory, we all frankly admit, is worth a season of defeats; therefore it would seem that the unifying effect of athletics would not be greatly lessened by substituting intramural contests for pre-Yale games.

But when we consider finances the problem is less simple. Granted that there, is something incongruous in the idea of a university going into the business of entertaining the public, how else can we make possible the existence of our many minor sport teams and the possibilities for athletics which we now have? By taxing the student? Possibly that may be the way out. But the fact that the present system relieves us all of so much trouble and anxiety prevents us from welcoming any such method. If the public, we ask, is willing to help support the University, why should we object?

But this is a materialistic way of looking at the matter. Would it not be better to say that if the only purpose of our present arrangement is monetary, then that arrangement should go by the board? Playing football games for the financial gain alone smacks more of the professional than the amateur.

This is not an entirely agreeable conclusion. But, to go back, for what other purpose do we have the pre-Yale game? For training? If Yale gave up her early contests too the loss of training would be equalized. For "college spirit"? The Yale game would take care of that. For--we hesitate here--for advertising? That would seem to be the purpose which contests with the colleges in the West and South have been arranged. From this point on we enter upon highly controverted ground; but it seems to us that it is better to have a frank discussion on this point than to resort to the time-worn subterfuge.

In another part of the report mention is made of the fact that there is a prevalent impression that the University is losing its hold on other parts of the country. In referring to this President Lowell calls attention to the fact that recent investigations by Professor Hart indicate that this is not the case; that in the college the proportion of students residing outside of New England has increased with growing rapidity in the last few years. This would seem to do away with the argument that advertising is of immediate necessity.

Not only is it not necessary but in our opinion, the publicity derived from intersectional games is not desirable. For this reason: Harvard is an educational institution, an institution of learning. What has the quality of the football teams to do with that? Would an investment house advertise by sending out a theatrical production?

It may be claimed that when our team went to Pasadena a favorable impression of Harvard was gained as much by the intercourse of the players with Californians as by their victory. This sort of advertising is entirely legitimate. But is it worth the while? Is it sufficiently so to justify intersectional games? But this argument can be more easily answered by again quoting President Lowell, who says, in speaking of the desire of graduates to have our team play in the West:

"At its last meeting the Associated Harvard Clubs passed a vote urging that our eleven should play with one of the great colleges of the Middle West, in alternate years at the Stadium and on the field of that college. If, like the professional baseball leagues, the object of the college football teams is to carry on a contest for national championship it is not quite clear how these, demands can be proved unreasonable. But the Faculty, assuming that education is the prime object of the college, is of the opinion that the members of the team, their substitutes, managers, etc., cannot be absent from Cambridge more than they are now without detriment to their studies."

In other words, whatever pre-Yale games we have they will be at home.

This may be interpreted as an attack against athletics. It is not. The CRIMSON is of the opinion that athletics are fully as important in the University as studies. But they have a well defined place. As a means of unificatiton, of training, and of recreation they are invaluable. When they go into the field of revenue producing and advertising they do more harm than good.