FACTS AND FIGURES

In an analysis of the balance sheets of the Athletic Association for the fiscal year 1935-36, the figure which first strikes the eye is the small but substantial profit that marks the year's operations. Although the few thousand dollars in black ink do not make much of a showing in comparison with the lush days of 1931 and 1932, when Harvard's football team was last riding the crest of success, nevertheless even the small surplus is an encouraging climb from the several gloomy years just past.

But despite this seeming improvement, there is one factor which only close study of the report brings to light, - namely, that the A.A. has shifted to the University the cost of compulsory physical education. Thus what stands for a small margin of profit might well be taken for a twenty thousand dollar loss.

Although this double accounting at first blush seems misleading, and somewhat remeniscent of New Deal Treasury methods, the transfer of compulsory Freshmen sports simply means that the University has begun to take on its own shoulders the responsibility for Harvard's athletics. It follows in direct line with President Contant's policy of eventually setting up an endowment fund large enough to divorce the college activities from dependence on football receipts.

Viewed as the first step in this direction, the removal of the compulsory sports item to the books of the college can be hailed as the beginning of the march of progress, even though it opens a nasty hole in the A.A. figures and leaves the endowment fund itself as much of a vision as ever.