Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-11-12
Common Sense and "Amatsuri.m."


The sole test of the fitness Of a man
to play college baseball Is this: Is he
an honest student, taking a complete
course. keeping to the standard of
qualification in his Studies. I wouldn't
care If he had played baseball profession
ally all his life; If he can come up to the
requirement of a college, honestly set
ting education and scholarship above
the rest, he should have every priv1-
lege of a student from psychology to
pitching and from physics to football
There is no more reason why an honest
student should not pay his way through
college by pitching ball in vacations
than by tutoring or waiting on hotel
table.-Lewiston Journal.
That is common sense, and we cor
daily endorse every word of it. The
way in which hairs are split by the ath-
letic authorities of some Institutions
the great universities of the East in
particular-in defining the amateur
standing of undergraduate athletes is
little less than sickening. 1t is nothing
else than a form of snobbery which sur
wives from certain English institutions
of learning where the aristocracy
is supreme and the student who
works his way by any means
whatever is not tolerated in ath-
letics or social life or in hardly any
other relation. Such spirit should be
wholly foreign to the democratic life of
American universities and colleges, yet
it is that spirit which bars from many
athletic teams the student in good and
regular standing who earns money to
defray his legitimate college expenses
by playing on summer baseball teams,
or coaching a football team or giving
boxing lessons.
OF course, nobody will defend the hir-
ing of athletes by colleges or by college
athletic associations 6r managers. IN
doubtedly this has been done in some
instances, and money has been paid to
valuable athletes for serving on college
teams. They were in college for athlet-
les and nothing else and in allowing
them there the college authorities were
as much at fault as anybody. That is
one thing, and it is a debasing of honest
college sport which cannot be too Sc
verely condemned or too strictly avoid
ed. But it is quite another thing to bar
a. bona fide student from representing
the college in athletics because he uses
his athletic ability to earn money need
ed to pay his college expenses. We
makes such a student professional
and so keeps him off the eleven or the
nine and which regards as an ''ama-
tour" and therefore eligible, his class
mates who have money enough so that
they can loaf through the vacations, or
who earn money by selling books or
collecting fares or waiting on tables.
There are some rules governing the
eligibility of students TO the athletic
teams of their university or college,
concerning whose wisdom there is little
dispute. 1t is almost universally ruled
that the student must be In good stand
ing in his studies; that he shall not
take part in intercollegiate athletics
more than four years; and that if he
goes from one college to another he
shall be at the latter institution one
year before representing it in athletics.
Such regulations, We believe, have re-
Gently been adopted at all of our Maine
colleges, and they seem fair and reason
able. But we see neither fairness nor
reason in any rule or proposed rule to
shut out any bona fide student who uses
his athletic skill in vacation time to
earn money necessary to continue his
college course,-whether he earns S. by
pitching on his local team or has the
ability and opportunity to earn hun
dreds by playing in faster company.