The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1890-06-07
The Athletic Mania.

The Athletic Mania.
The objectionable acts of vandalism
upon the college buildings, committed
by intoxicated students of Harvard
University under the pretext of cele-
brating the victory of that university
over rival in athletic sports, is the
reasonable and natural outcome of the
athletic "mania" now running riot in
nearly all the colleges and universities
of this country.
The TACT is that the question may
now be very seriously asked, whether
Drawn or brain is being educated in our
colleges and schools, so frequent are
the "junketing" trips of rival college
clubs of athletes, vocalists and Ministries
roaming oyer the country and whether
it is not the fact that the incentives to
study, under existing conditions, look
more to the development of our young
men physically, than to their intellect
ual and moral attainments. We have
always held the theory, which may pos
sibly seem old foggish in these latter
days, that a co ordinate education was
necessary for the normal development
of a young man. That he must be
taught and trained mentally. morally
and physically. this education contem-
plating the necessary equapoise fgrowth
or development, which must exist as
the basis of what is meant by the term
"a we'll balanced character" In other
words, if mans intellect be educated
exclusively you make skeptic of him.
Ii his heart alone be cultivated he be-
comes fanatic. Both his head and
his heart are to be educated equally.
and with them also as no less essential
to his true development, the body is to
be looked to as the proper subject of
careful attention, training and educa-
ton.
Now, however, under this high pres
sure athletic system, the body alone
seems to be the subject to which is d.
rected the popular aim and interest of
modern college life. The fellow who
is nimble of heel, or tough in the tug
and tumble of the college gymnastic
ring, is elevated above his more intel
lectual fellows into sort of Sullivanistic
realm of local celebrity. Scholarship,
as the true end and aim of proper col
leglate endeavor, IS relegated to the
rear, and sits silent and obscure on
back seat, while the burly college BROTH
er breaks the bones, or bruises the
blceps of his contesting champion OF
some other college campus. This seems
the unwelcome but prevalent tendency
in nearly all our colleges. Where mus
Gle does not predominant its twin
amusement, minstrelsy of the "burnt
cork" type, is the last resort to kill time
and amuse the diligent student, not OF
mathematics and the classics, but of
plantation life and manners.
This fad" of college folles, tolerated
by the mistaken indulgence of too SUBJ
SERVANT college masters, has recently
invaded the precincts of one of our
most venerable and respectable Mary
land colleges. An Annapolis paper,
noticing a concert recently given in
that ancient borough by the Negro
Minstrel Troupe of St. Johns college,
makes an announcement that must be
exceedingly gratifying to the parents of
the student performers. that "some of
the parts would haye done credit to
many of the professionals of the present
day." So successful was this perform
ance that Easton is to be visited by the
troupe, and possibly other Eastern
Shore towns are to be shown what at
talnments the "boys" OF St. Johns have
made as "Banjo" and "Bones."
Now we candidly ask, are not such
performances entirely beneath the dig
nifty of respectable college, and just
as much perversion OF the true aim
and object of collegiate life as an exhi-
bitlon of expert pugalism-of which
negro minstrelsy is the twin brother
would be2
But outside of the fact of the ques-
uonable character of the minstrel bust
ness as an adjunct of college life, now
many and how reasonable are the OBJ
jeCtiOnS to it as subversive of college
discipline, and destructive of the men
tai habit necessary to the attainment
even OF ordinary scholarship
We preface this question with the
assumption that scholarship is one of
the objects of collegiate life. In what
measure does the production of the
successful minstrel and the framed |
gymnast defeat this object1 Who is to
measure the frightful loss of valuable
time spent upon ignoble sports and |
frivolous pastimes-hours, too, stolen
from those due to the nobler and higher
pursuits of college life1 Pursuits not
all of the closet or cloister either, but
of the college campus. Pursuits of 1