TO CORRECT MISUNDERSTANDING

The recent mysterious questionnaire which purported to submit to a plebiscite of graduates and undergraduates two statements--one by the CRIMSON and one by W. O. McGeehan, sports writer--has succeeded well in doing well what the anonymous joker who sent it evidently sought to do. It has thrown a cloud of misinterpretation and misunderstanding around a perfectly sane and frank statement by the CRIMSON of the proper relations that should exist between athletics and the College. One graduate Mr. J. M. Hallowell '88, who has been so misled, writes indignantly as follows:

There is no natural antagonism between academic prestige and a good running backfield. The situation is, in certain respects, like capital and labor. The division arises from the blindness or stupidity of one or the other. For the purposes of healthy, vigorous America both are necessary; and there is room for both. The party, whether it be professor or athlete, who creates a division between the two is an enemy to both.

In its recent editorial the CRIMSON stated its position as follows: "The Stadium is an accessory of the College, and not the College of the Stadium."

It should be evident that the CRIMSON has not anticipated to set up an unnatural antagonism between academic prestige and a good running backfield." Scholarship and athletics should be complementary, each occupying its proper place. They should stand in the same relation to each other as mind and body in man, each necessary in its own way for well-rounded development.

What is needed at the moment is a new sense of balance and proportion. To represent these two important phases of college life in an unreal antagonism was the work of the thoughtless person who mailed the cards and has successfully hidden behind his anonymity.