The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-28
SEVERE BLOW AT COACHES
PRESIDENT ELIOT OF HARVARD ON
 COLLEGIATE SPORTS.

COLLEGi LITE SIOhIos
 Annual Reports of the President and Dean
 of the University-Strictures of the Fora
 mer on College Sports Less Severe
 Than Last Year--Iribute to Prof. Louis
 Agassiz-FinaneiaI Statement.
 Cambridge, Mass, Jan. %.-The an nual reports of the president and treas urer of Harvard university will be ready for distribution tomorrow. The entire report contains one page more of printed matter than that of last year. The sections of the report winch are of interest to the public are the presidents brief statement in athletes, his tribute to Professor Louis Agassiz, his review of the religious policy of the university as incorporated into the chapel services, and also Dean L. B. Briggs remarks upon the disciplinary work of the college to suppress d1shon- esty in the written work of students.
 President Eliot begins by referring to the deaths of Martin Brimmer, for twenty-tw years a fellow of the cor poraton Professor Josiah D. Whitney, Professor Francis J. Child Professor Daniel D. Sale, and Elliot Folger Rog- CTS go, who was an instructor in chem istry. He then mentions new statute making it hereafter unnecessary to procure the consent of the board oi overseers to the appointment of ln- structors for the term of one year, as- sistants, and proctors Another vote of importance adopted by the corporation was to the effect that the receipts and expenditures of the three departments of Harvard college, the Lawrence Sci entific school and the graduate schoo be combined into one account.
 In reference to athletics, President Eliot's statement is much briefer anc less startling than last years. The conduct of intercollegiate sports during the year proved afresh that the man. agement of these sports at Harvard | has been for some years unintelligen' and for that reason unsuccessful. The evils of over training and excessive ex- ertion on the part of the members o1 the principal teams were exhibited 1T 1 high degree
 "A fundamental defect in the ath. | letic examination has been that coache: l of limited experience, who may b' l either unobservant or obtuse, car override on the spot the advice of th' trainer and physician. The result i' that the principal players of footbal are almost all more or less injured earl. in the season, and are then brought tt l the principal games in crippled O 1 exhausted condition, while the crev comes to the final race less capable O endurance than they were month ear Her
 The remedies are the subordinatior of coaches to an expert in training ol to a medical adviser, and the genera adoption of more reasonable view. about all training for athletic sports It must be perceived and admitted tha training which goes beyond pleasure lble exercise is worse than useless, ant that so-called sports which require { dull and dreaded routine of hardship and suffering in preparation for a fev exciting crises are not worth what the! cost They prevent even courage ant self-sacrifice, because these high qual ities are exercised for no adequat' end"
 Harvard's policy in chapel services il summed up and reviewed in thes words: Looking back through thi period of ten years to the condition o the university chapel before 1886, on cannot be too thankful that the uni Iversity has escaped from the man. evils of required attendance at relig Iious services, and has won the positiv benefits which the voluntary system administered as the principles whicl have obtained here, has procured ant demonstrated
 | President Eliot refers to the decreas of size of the freshman class. ant writes: ''The cause of these and lik fluctuations are obscure: but there i no doubt that many persons who wer members of the college or scientif school last June, or who had been ad lmitted thereto in the summer of 1886 were prevented by poverty from join ling their respective classes"
 The presidents warm tribute to tn
 work of Professor Louis Agassiz con
 tains the following: "All education il 1.-the United States and all American sci ence are under the deepest obligation
 to Louis Agassiz. He introduced her in 1847 the laboratory method of teach
 ing science. Properly combined wit lectures, it was the only method we be l,.z ic hn nyl method now considered satisfactory o
 even justifiable.* The nu
 merous well appointed laboratories 0
 to-day, not only in Harvard university
 but in all institutions of the highe
 learning, and even in well-equippe
 secondary schools, bear witness to tn
 importance of this reform in whc
 Agassiz was pioneers Tn