The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-07-29
COLLEGE ATHLETICS.

Indifference, he is not an aruent advocate
of athletics as a part of the college
course. The doctor has been making
some "practical tests" of the value Of
high physical training, and the results
of his observations are thus given:
He has compiled list of twenty
seven Princeton students who are Off
GERS and members of football and base
hall teams. He finds where each OF
these twenty-seven students stands in
the six groups into which the classes
are graded according to scholarship.
Fifteen are of the two lowest groups
only two are in the second group; and
ten in the third and fourth group-well
down in the FORM All but seven are in
the lower half of the class, and not one
has the first rank in scholarship.
DR.. MeCosh very naturally suggests
that this demonstrates that one who
succeeds as an athlete must do SO at
the expense of his literary education
that is to say, that the college course is
too short for a thorough intellectual and
thorough physical training, or that the
ordinary young man is incapable of
becoming scholar and a ball player.
Of the two the president prefers ripe
scholar without knowledge of ball play
ing to moderately learned man who
is expert in athletics. Nine men out OF
ten would probably agree with DR..
McCosh, and give their verdict in favor
of the education at the expense of the
physical training; but wouldn't these
nine men be quite as far from the right
as from the wrong? In the first place,
the test that Dr. McCosh made was not
a fair one, if the information gained is
to be used for practical purposes in
deciding whether or not rowing, ball.
playing, and so on should be continued
in our colleges. To make valuable
test an equal number of those who
graduate high and do not play ball, and
of those who are low down in their
classes, and who play ball, should be
taken, and their course in real life
noted When men come to battle with
the world, to struggle with other
men for existence, and en-
ploy their mental faculties and
physical capabilities, then the full value
of their early training, and their college
course and life, is developed. If those
men who have shown the highest brain |
culture and the lowest physical training
shall succeed better than the students
who can make 'home runs" who win
in swimming and rowing matches, and
who are the recognized chiefs in ath-
etic sports though deficient in Greek
and Latin, then the athletics should be
abandoned, and the time wasted in bat
ing, running, rowing and jumping be
devoted to books. The world and not
he college is the real test of what there
S in man.
We do not believe the physical train
ng to which so many college boys sub
ect themselves is injurious, nor that it
nterferes with their intellectual devel-
pment. The ambition and energy
hat boy requires to bring him out
head in foot race, and that help him
} the best score in ball game, are good
ualitieS for him to possess when he
1meS to shouldering his way through :
lie world. AS physical exercise and /
ctivity mean better physical develop
lent and health, both so essential to !
access in life and the enjoyment of }
the student who can drive {
all to the utfield and while his antag- I
nists are Fastening and struggling for "
S capture, go around the diamond like
lie wind, is in better condition for the =,
tactical duties of life, than his class "
ate who cannot spare time from his D
'oks to indulge in such senseless and D
orldly matters as baseball and foot \,
cling. n
The evil OF athletic sports in colleges G.
that they are sometimes permitted to =,
come mania with the students. to g.
e neglect of books. If the physical L.
aiming can be restricted to reasonable N
nits, the development of the body and 81
e sport OF the student being con. d.
Tered, it will be better to continue it at
r colleges. even though it should turn
t graduates little less learned in the