New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-01-30
AFFAIRS At HIRVARD COLLEGE.
THE PRESIDENTS REPORT PRESIDENT ELroT's
ADDRt So TO THE STUDENTS

| THE PRESIDENTS gEPoRr- PRESIDENT ELroT's
| ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS
CAMBRIDGE, jan 20.-a The Presidents Report. as
| 1t Is called, made It's appearance last week Tho
present number contains reports from tho president
Ut the University and from the deans Of all the acuI
! ties, ami also from tho University treasurer. Tho
reports from President Eliot and from the treasurer
are the essential and interesting Of all these
reports In the present report he reviews the pro-
gress made In the subject Of entrance examinations
| in English, Greek and Latin. notes tho endeavors of
the faculty to imp the teaching OF elementary
science in the secondary schools, and then passes
tho subject OF voluntary chapel lie says Tho
experience Of the year indicates that all these services
can be usefully and honorably maintained on the
method OF voluntary attendance. Religious interest
among the students has undoubtedly Increased with
the abandonment Of prescribed attendance, and the
serious minded students have the wholesome
feeling that they themselves partly responsible
for maintaining and enarging religious influences at
tho University. There are, OF course, students who
never enter Appleton Chapel, expose themselves
In any way to tho PREACHERS influence; but in this
respect tho college closely resembles tho larger com
mnnity without"
President Eliot further asserts that expenses for
students at Harvard not The increase, but that
student may obtain all the advantages OF college life,
physical, social and Intellectual, for not moro than
$500 per year, and that 500 will all that is
absolutely necessary.
concerning athletics he says: Three sports,
namely, football baseball and rowing, liable to
abuses which do not attach to the sports much
to their accompaniments under present system of
intercollegiate competition. These abuses are ex-
travagan expenditures by and for the ball players
and the crews the interruption Of college work which
exaggerated interest in tho frequent ball matches
causes. betting, trckery condoned by public opinion
which demands victory, ami the hystericaI demons
trations OF tho college pubic successful games
These follies best be kept in check by reducing
the intercollegiate competitions to the lowest number
Tho number of these competitions Is at present
siVe from every point o. vIew.' The president fayOrs
reducing the competition 10 an annual race WIN
Yale, and football games and baseball games with
In the Treasurer's report for the year there is a
deficit OF 81 900 In the University exchequer.
the college. Nearly all the departments Of the Uni
versty pay for themselves. Tho law school Is In a
In Presden Eos i lecture on Monday evening
he carried still further certain doas limited
immense effect that college public opinion, when
pressed effectively, had upon the faculty, he went on
less; drinking to excess, lying, cheating at examina
tons among which he characterized lying as the one
objectionable offence that the faculty would not for
give. These ought to be taken in hand by the stu
dents, for they alone can do anything here When
misunderstood, unsupported and exaggerated Often
the faculty must keep the motives for expelling
is sure to be distorted by -parte rumors What the
students must insist Is to get at the right
two reason why such information be denied
What tho faculty insists is that the students shall
The right sources of information The president Save
several illustrations OF the gross ignorance of the
wholly In their hands. He said that arvarc's repu-
taton bad because forty years ago Har, ard was
nltarian college, and snch greatly diSliked by the
other denominations. who willing to believe
ANYTHING immoral OF Harvard and Harvard has
readiness which newspaper reporters show TO dis
credit all colleges, and Harvard In particular.