FOOTBALL--WHY KILL IT?

The authorities of Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, N. J. have abolished football. This is the first outburst of a reaction which many people have believed was bound to come against the present over-emphasis upon football in American colleges. The Stevens authorities, however, seem to have erred by going too far in the right direction. It is natural enough for any reaction to swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme Perhaps the movement to reform football is distined to take some such radical direction before it finally settles to a sensible point in between glorification and abolishment of the game. It is probable, however, that such violent measures will do more harm than good by incensing devotees of football against any reform whatever.

President Humphreys of Stevens says that the rigid schedule of training, the consequent drain upon a student's time for study, and the injuries caused by "open play", justify the abolishment of the sport at that instituion. It is true that football has reached the point where the training of an athlete overtops every other consideration, studies not excluded; and the difference between amateurism and professionalism becomes largely a technicality. An amateur in football is certainly not an amateur in the general meaning of the word. But complaint on the score of injuries has less justification. Football, to be sure, is more strenuous than, say squash. But it is not so dangerous as lacrosse. Yet there has been no very very wide plea to abolish lacrosse.

The main trouble with football is that it has yielded to the spirit of commercialism. It is the most dramatic of sports, and the box office has capialized its opportunities. All the major evils against which college authorities complain in football--over-training, the tendency to develop brawn at the expese of brain, in short, athleticism at its worst--are the direct result of introducing the commercial spirit into the colleges, where it has no proper place. It is the commercial spirit that needs to be attacked, not football itself Oust commercialism and save football for its many beneficial qualities--this is the need. The action of the Stevens authorities is like the method of a doctor who, instead of amputating an infected member, kills the patient outright because that is the easier way to handle the case.