Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-12-14

AN UNREASONABLE RAGE.-Some OF
the leading newspapers OF the country
are expostulating against the extent to
which athletic college sports are car
ricd. This is most timely protest.
The baseball and football Juror has
reached pitch that interferes with
the steady and successful prosecution
of academical and professional studies
in our colleges and universities
Indeed, the prizes in these physical
encounters are, to large degree, re-
garded as worthier objects of ambition
than the scholastic honors-muscle IS
set above mind; Drawn above brain.
These athletic contests are for the
time the rage; and the presidents and
professors, whose better judgments are
opposed to the excess, have in this, as
in the case of SO many other Jurors,
been carried into the swim. This
comes largely from the competition be-
tween our colleges for larger numbers
of students The excitement and pas
sion for these sports have become SO
imperious with these youngsters OF
collegiate age and aspirations that
they will not, as these presidents and
professors fear, enter any institution
that does not permit and encourage
them In other words, it is tie fashion,
and with colleges as with individuals,
one had, according to the proverb, as
we'll be out of the world as out of the
fashion.
That many diploma has been lost,
many creditable career at college
sacrificed upon the altar of this IRA
tional athletic age, there can be no
doubt whatever. Not few of our
readers will be able, from their own
oh 70 ifxr Cfa famnnf
sThere is reason in everything" is an
old proverb; but this is an exception
there is neither rhyme nor reason in
the excess of the football infatuation.
Now and then, in the public prints,
some apolOgist comes forward to give
an instance in which the champion
player has carried off the highest AGA
demic honors. Such instances are rare
and exceptional The rule is that ex-
cessive ardor in athletic games is a
serious impeachment to systematic and
successful studies.
The ancient Greeks, the most intel
lectual race probably that ever inhabit-
ed this sphere, understood this matter.
They did not, by any means, underrate
the value of athletic exercises as a
means of physical culture. This is
manifest from the prominence given to
L
games. But it is equally manifest that
they subordinated physical to intellect
ual culture. Plato, the wisest of their
philosophers and scholars, in his Ideal
Republic inculcated the necessity of
putting limitations upon mere athletic
exercises. He considered the ''mere
athletep as little better than "a saw
age" and declared that the effect of
carrying gymnastic training to great
lengths was to make the mind dull
and feeble"
There can be little doubt that the
Greek philosopher was right; and we
confidently look for reaction against
the present preposterous extent to
which our colleges are carrying these
physical contests. The American peo-
pie are eminently practical and sensi-
BILE, and a more sedate reflection, a
more sober sentiment, will most GER
tainly call a halt upon this athletic
furor.-Lynchburg Vrginion.
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