The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-03-05
PLAYS CLASS ROOM
AGAINST FOOTBALL
Michigan Professor Says Greek
Roots Are Sometimes
Fatal
snecial to The Globe

Special to The Globe
ANN ARBOR, Mich, March 4.-After
sending out inquiries for their views to
thirty college presidents in the middle
west Prof. Victor W. Lane, of the Uni
versity of Michigan Law school, has sum
married. the feeling in regard to unfor-
tunate tendencies in modern athletics as
expressed by them. The opinions bear
particularly the new eligibility rule,
devised by the western conference, re-
quiring half years residence for partici-
patton in intercollegiate contests thus
barring freshmen from varsity football
teams.
Il am persuaded" Prof Lane saws "as
is every other person with whom L have
corresponded, who. has discussed the
q question at all, that the rule recently
adopted by the conference intercollegiate
committee at Chicago. requiring full
semester before participation in college
contests. VIII be almost panacea for the
unwlse recruiting practices which now
Prof. Lane furnishes a figuratiye COM
parlson between the number of students
whom football kills annually. and those
klled by class work. He says: 1T is not
more sin to permit a boy to engage in
competition on the field in which he may
ger MS nose, leg, or neck broken, than it
is to compel the boy or girl to engage i'm
competition in the class room in which
ms or her nervous system is permanently
injured A man killed with baseball bat
Every fall someone is sure to gather a
list OF casualties on the gridiron, but no
one has yet attempted 10 give US the
much longer list of much more serious
casualties from the quite as strenuous
contests in the class room. l am now
contending that we are requiring too much
in the class room. The time seems not
yet to have come when some need not
to suffer for the good of the greater num-
Der. -
In the replies of college presidents as
TO how this athletic tendency should be
regulated, Prof. Lane has one from Pres
ldent Northrop of Minnesota. the college
which has refused 10 ratify the new. fresh
man rule approving of the regulation. DIR.
Northrop is the only college president in
the west who has sent in even qualified
statement that western college athletics is
satisfactory. President Harper of Chicago
attacks especially the pressure put upon
promising athletes in secondary schools"
and also gambling.
The objections to prevailing conditions.
Prof Lane says, are grouped about six
facts:
First-The system gives a maximum of
attention to the few and minimum of
attention to the many.
Second=ItS financial side is exagger-
ated.
Third-'The spirit. of professionalism is
too prominent
Fourth-Vicious recruiting methods are
commonly praeticed.
Fifth-ScholarShip standards are WaiV-
ed for the athlete.
SiXth-Violations of eligibility rules are
too common and not vigorously dealt with.
For Michigan, Prof Lane speaks as fol-
lows about the general charges that eligi-
bility rules are not enforced: I'm the
half dozen years l have been member of
our board of control of athletics there
have been but one or two cases in which
man has been permitted to- play on
varsity team who had a condition in his
work, and then by reason of peculiar con-
ditionS which were thought to justify il.
/ am persuaded that one reason for vio-
lating the rules for amateur standing is
found in the fact that the student is not
persuaded of the justice or reasona bleneSs
of some of them. The rule that student
should be disqualified because in a village
celebration he ran foot race for boys
under IA has something in it TO make it
difficult of enforcement