Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-06-29
Athletics Discussed by a College
President,
THE BENEFITS OF OUTDOOR SPORTS
General Trend Toward ManIiness
and Other Desirable Qualities.
GOLF AND BUSINESS MAN

Physical training is becoming a perma
nent fashion and is calling to it's aid the
scholarship and wisdom of Europe and
America. In some form or other, we are
told, it is now provided In nearly 800
American colleges and by more than 400
Young Mems Christian Associations Sew
eral hundred cities have made it part of
the public school system. The Germans in
our country have established hundreds of
gymnasiums, while athletic news fills more
columns in the great city journals than do
the debates in Congress.
1 meet men past middle age who are al
most Supplied by the widespread athletic
interest in our country. Some of them are
college men, who gained their exercise
saving wood or shoveling snow, moving
lawns or doing other Chores" Some of
these very worthy men sigh for the good
old tines when foot ball and tennis, base
bali and golf. bicycling and boating were
never thought of as a part OF college lie.
To me one of the SaddeSt sights is a mid
dle-aged or old man, who has never learned
to play, who has no resources of relaxation,
who cares little for any exercise In the
outer world that Is not directly and mar
rowly useful. l have known grand men
who have broken down utterly and become
nervous wrecks largely because the play
element in human nature had never been
Training Carefully Directed.
On thing must be said in defense of col
lege athletics against much hasty criticism,
and that is this, that physical training is
under careful supervision in all our best
colleges. Men who have made a thor
ough study of the anatomy of the human
body, men and women who have given
years of special investigation Of the prob
OF
physical life of the young people commit
ted to their charge. Before athletic con-
tests are possible, the young people OF our
colleges must be thoroughly examined, and
over all the physical training, so various
and so useful, which is now provided there
Is wise and careful oversight.
Moral Advantages of Athletics.
I wish. first of all, to speak of the moral
advantages of college athletics. great
preacher, who is also an educator, said In
my hearing recently that the greatest pow
er of morals in the modern college Is the
gymnasium. He said this deliberately, hav-
ing had wide experience With young men
and knowing the special temptations to
which they are exposed. president Eliot
wrote that mo American college. wherever
situated possesses any method of discipline
which avaiIs for the suppression or eXc1u-
sion of vice. The vicious student can find
all means of indulgence in the smallest viii
lage and the worst vices are the stillest.
1t is a distinct advantage of the German
university method that it does not pretend
to maintain any parental or monast1c DIS
cipline over It's students, but frankly tells
them they must govern themselves. The
moral purpose of a university's policy
should be to train men to self-control and
seif-reiiance through liberty.
There Is a large measure of truth In this
expression of opinion, but | fear that If the
gymnasium and the athletic field We're
taken out of the modern college We should
,,-y,l A. hot
an active and interesting university lis the
safest place in the world for young men
who have anything in them-far safer than
the counting room, shop, factory, farm,
barrack, forecastle or ranch" I believe
that it Is the general testimony of careful
observers, and especially Of teachers of
physical culture. that the athletic life IS a
moral safeguard for young men. 1t gives
them an outlet for their energies in the
most earnest, temptable and combative
period of physical manhood, 1t helps to
send pure blood to the brain: it keeps the
mind from introspection: 1t controls the
heart In the period when youth is most
sensitive and sentimental, and promotes an
all-round healthfulness.
The aroused interest in athletics has been
a great advantage to women as we'll as to
men. and the new American woman has a
physical vigor and forttude which give
promise Of a better and stronger race.
BENEFITS of College Athletics.
From the observations which have made
In the last few years OF the aroused and
widening interest in college athletics I am
persuaded that the advantages are great
and permanent; that the evils are subordi-
nate and temporary.
I always think Of John Milton in his
youth as a man whose moral courage was
backed by physical courage. He was a
fencer and one who loved the outdoor life
which he has pictured In "L'Allegro" and
I'll Penseroso" l always think of Wash
ington as an outdoor man in whom there
was an almost perfect balance Of the phys
ical, mental and m oral qualities. Gladstone
was great walker and could WELD the
ak with a vigor and skill equal to his
strength and experiences in debate. Charles
Kingsley was an outdoor man. One who
walks through the quadrangle of Oxford
and Cambridge and notes the English stu
dents Of today must be delighted with their
fresh compilations, their vigorous STEP their
clearly look and well groomed Appearance
Few specimens of young manhood equal to
them can be found elsewhere. The German
university students appear flabby and weak
in the comparison In the German army
we see officers who more like the men
of the English universities, but the beer
swilling and dueling German student does
not satisfy the lover Of physical strength
and symmetry.
One cannot reach the age of fiftv and
see much of human life without the conyic-
ton that the physical after all, is the
basis of success in life, in business in the
pIOleSSlOHS anu III everything else, How
many dyspeptic, sleepless, anxious-minded
professional men are early disabled and
laid aside because they have not early
learned to take care of the body and had
no joy in any Of the outdoor sports some
of tt4m very simple, by which human life
and energy are prolonged.
Golf for the Middle Aged,
The widened and growing enthusiasm for
the game Of golf, which Is fitted to men
and women Of sixty and seventy, as well as
to the boys and girls Of sixteen, is to me
one OF the encouraging signs of the times.
I know a banker in Chicago whose pre-
carious health made his family nervous.
and cast him into frequent fits of depres-
sion. who has been physically regenerated
on the golf links. He has something that
gives him perpetual interest, which takes
him out of himself and out into Gods great
world Of air and sky and field. An earlier
use of the driver, clique and putter would
have saved many a minister lawyer and
business man from a nervous collapse.
Some Evils of College Athletics,
Some Of the evils of college athletics
are beginning to be alarmingly apparent
Too much time is taken in the training of
contestants for intercollegiate honors The