The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-06-21
President M'Cosh on Athletics.
Anxious not to Abolish Them, but to keep
Them Within Due Bounds.

In his report to the Board of Trustees
OF Princeton College, President McCosh Gre
ated some establishment among the students
aud others by an attack on excessive indul-
gence in exciting athletic games. The re-
port opened as follows
We are now happily delivered from the old
college customs of debasing character. |
hope we have done forever with rakes, with
hazlng, with students smoking 10 their
rooms, with secret societies, with DENYING
guilt to the faculty in the idea that there Is
no evil in it, with mobs making noises
around professors houses, and with unbe-
coming levity in the chapel. 1t has cost us
some Labor and patience to put down these
practices, but we have been able to do so
without our being met by the resemblance
OF rebellion, and without being compelled
to expel students.
In reference to college athletics the re-
port continues:
| am bound to state further that within
the last few years gymnastic games have
been carried on TO an injurious extent. The
very circumstance that when ] came to this
college introduced gymnastics makes me
now the more anxious they should be kept
within due bounds. l am not aware that
else, but there has been in the exciting
games that are played. | calculate that
some eight or ten students in every class of
100 lose very much of the benefit of their
college life because their hearts are in the
sports rather than their studies. | am sor-
ry to be obliged to say that the enthusiasm
of the students is expended on these muscu-
lar feats than on intellectual exercises. The
hero of his class is one who stands high, not
st,f at III
in mere physical agility. The larger portion
of the ordinary news organ of the college Is
often given up to the report of games. /
have asked the faculty to devise effective
measures to avert these excuses. A CON-
mittee has prepared careful report on the
subject. | trust we will be sustained in our
efforts By parents and by the public press
In Princeton no student is allowed to con-
tend in any public game without the written
permission of his parent or guardian. But
there are parents who weakly give their con-
sent to the opportunities of their sons, and
then complain that We have trained them in
idleness. The public press, as whole,
are telling the colleges very plainly that they
are going to excess in sports. Let them en-
courage those colleges that are seeking to
lay restraints on the evil. Some colleges are
refusing to join in the exertions we are max
ing, not 20 stop sports, but to keep them
WITHIN due bounds. These colleges may gain
the championship in games, but let the peo-
pie know that it is not to their credit for the
good of the students committed TO their
care by fathers and mothers. 1t may come
to this, that we may have to refuse to allow
our students to play with those colleges
which lay no restraint on the time devs1ed
to games. A student here told his PROBES
sor that he had come to college, not to
study, but to play foot ball. We do not wish
our college to be viewed by young men as
place where this can be done.