The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-12-17
FOOTBALL PRO AND CON.

| In a recent article in the North
American Review, DR.. George E. Mer-
| rill, president of Colgate university
| discusses football from the impartial
standpoint of an educator who desires
to throw the weight of his influence
| in whatever direction will prove most
| advantageous to the young men who
place themselves under the directing
| influences of college authorities.
| President Merrill assumes at the
outset that football is game for men,
and not for boys. AS form of enter
tainment he thinks that ii is emineniy
successful, for otherwise thirty or
forty thousand people would not vol
unfairly leave their homes and bust
ness and sit on rough boards in chill
| ly November winds, ofttimes in the
| rain, with no coverings but their UNI
| brellas, to witness a game between
teams from rival colleges.
He sees much in it to prepare men
| for hardships through the severe train
| ing that is a part of the game. He says
| that it teaches self-control under the
stress of high excitement: that it
| trains the judgment to act quickly and
|
| observation, gives power to detect, re-
| member, anticipate, interpret and
| thwart the plans of opposing minds:
| InculcateS prompt obedience, and so
preoccupies the attention of students
| to the exclusion of much that was for
merly mischievous in college life, that
| it has become the ally of good order
| and reasonable living"
In view of these credits to the ac-
| counts of the game, Dr. Merrill thinks
| that it would not be wise to have the
game abolished. But with all Of this
said in it's favor, the question: rs
football good form of sport?" still
remains unanswered.
[ AS it is now played, Dr. Merrill con-
| siders the game too serious, toe
| fraught with dangers, to be called
sport. He endorses President Eliot
who characterized the game as war,
land agrees with Professor Hollis OF
an eastern college, who says that nc
mere sport should put life in peri
| as does a game of football.
| Another characteristic of the game
which should rule it out of the list OF
sports is the regulation which stops
a good play by opposition and inter
ference. In this respect the game is
in marked contrast to baseball, where
any attempt to stop or spoil the pla.
of an opponent is denounced as foul
The rules Of baseball will not per
nit a runner on bases to be tripped
nor will they permit many other unfair
advantages that are part of a foot
ball game. A game, in order to be
properly called sport should match
skill against skill-not skill agains
brute force.
Another Objectionable element in the
game is the practice of calling time a
the very moment that one side is or
the point of scoring. 1t is an unde.
served disappointment to players who
have endured hardships with couragt
and honor and who have honestly wor
I the score. Another objection is tn,
/ practice of entering fresh players wher
an exhausted man meets with a Sigh
injury and while the men on tn,
!, other side are also on the verge of com
, plete exhaustion.
!; The inequality in the scores at tn,
end of the game is auso counted a!
an objection to the game as fair sport
The playing may be nearly equal al
of the way through, but the defeated
| are given no score, or one. When com
pared with the score of the winnin.