The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-08-23
Billiards in Colleges.

Every Christian parent in the land should
protest against the introduction of billiard
tables into our colleges as part of the au
thorized educational apparatus. Instead of
being regarded as an attraction to the insti
tutons adopting them, this itself ought to
constitute sufficient reason with every con
scientious Christian parent for sending his
sons elsewhere We should not hesitate one
moment in taking this course, whatever might
be the advantages otherwise of the billiard
playing college.
For some time we have been wondering
whether the Christian public of our country
were intending quietly to accept and submit
to this needless, and, as it seems to us, most
irjurious innovation the time-honored
sentiments and customs of our American
colleges. But as no respectable institution
in our part of the country, West, Northwest
or Southwest, had yielded to the singular
novelty, we have waited in the hope that
others nearer the seat of operations would
break the silence, at least, by an indignant
protest. We are glad to see that some of
the leading Church journals at the East are
now calling public attention to the matter,
and lifting up an earnest voice of remon-
STRANGE and warning against practice
which, though it may creep in under the
guise of exercise and amusement, is almost
certain to end in habits of idlenesS, extrava,
gance, gambling and dissipation.
Indeed, it is time that both the pulpit and
the press should speak. 1t is a common in
terest in which we all have too much at stake
to justify indifference. For if few of our
venerable Eastern institutions like Princeton
and Yale, under the prestige of their hon
ored names and their eminent educators,
lead off in this direction, and make the bill
lard table necessary and even fashiona-
BILE part of the college curriculum, they
thereby establish precedent for all other
colleges, and bind them almost as by the
force of law to follow their example.
Are we prepared for change like this
Are all evangelical Christians, not to say
Presbyterians, willing to see billiards adopted
as pastime, an exercise, and an amusement
in every American college? And then shall
we adopt, what follows by parity of reason
ing, the card table as another of these beau
tifu, harmless and highly intellectual modes
of youthful recreation?
We must confess to some degree of amaze
ment that great, wise, aged and eminently
distinguished educators, like those who now
preside over Princeton and Yale with such
dignity and success, should see things in this
light, and look with allowance, if not, as We
fear, favor upon the introduction of billiard
tables into their respective institutions. We
wonder where they can have spent their
lives If they had lived in any one of the
thousands Of larger or smaller towns, not to
say cities, of the West and South, they
would have known that in the public mind
billiards and gambling are indissolubly con-
nected; that the billiard table is one of the
essential implements and exponents of the
beer garden, the drinking saloon, and the
gambling house, and flourish most in the i'm
mediate presence of theatres and horse races.
Is it proposed to exercise our college youth
in the cultivation of tastes and habits which
must prepare them for scenes like these, and
gradually but inevitably lead them to these
things!
We have seen no explanation of this nov.
city, and we certainly know no justification
for it. We are well aware that wealthy mer
and even Christian men in all our large cities
have billiard rooms and tables in their ele
CANT houses, just as others have card tables
{ But this furnishes no reason or argument
whatever we may think of their propriety ir
the home circle, for introducing them in thu
college training of our sons. In the ont
case the exercise or amusement is at home
under the watchful eye of parents and regu
} lated by all salutary home influences. There
J is no parallel between this case and that O.
boys at colleges engaging in such games
D and forming tastes and habits away from al
D such restraining influences
D If the eminent men of God who founde'
D or labored in building up these colleges coul,
come back again--Dwight, Day, Davies
D Burr, Edwards, Finley, Witherspoon, Green
0 Carnahan, Smith, and others-what woul
0 they think to hear the click of billiard ball
in these sacred halls of learning and prayer
n Tnforjoy