EXETER'S DECISION

The recent decision of the faculty of the Phillips Exeter Academy to allow all men in school regardless of their scholastic standing to compete in athletics with rival institutions seems on the surface ill-considered. It has long been the custom of most of the leading colleges and preparatory schools to make athletes too the mark academically, and to all intents and purposes the effects of these regulations have been entirely beneficial. Athletes have been forced to realize that the primary purpose of a higher education is not to play football.

The general adoption of a laxer attitude on the part of school and college authorities would unquestionably give rise to the growth of a class of pseudo students whose only aim in going to a large institution would be to compete in athletics as long as they could stay, and then, reputation earned, to find employment, athletic or otherwise, on the basis of it.

Still another angle to the present case is the accusation which instantly comes to the mind on hearing of a school's taking a new course in the very middle of the football season; namely that of attempting to strengthen an apparently weak eleven for the final and crucial tests of its fall campaign. The knowledge that such an accusation would inevitably bring into the public eye questions of good sportsmanship and fair play should alone have been enough to deter those in authority from announcing their decision at such an injudicious moment, however much the general effect may be minimized by Exeter's traditionally high reputation.

The decision seems to be based on an underestimation of the importance the student mind places in athletics and an over estimation of the difficulty of the Exeter entrance requirements which are supposed to provide the necessary check on athletes. If such be the case, it may be expected that the new course will prove its faults in actual operation and that the Exeter authorities will come to a realization that some relation between studies and athletics must be maintained if an undue emphasis is not to be placed on the latter.