Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-11-22
FOOTBALL AND ITS CRITICS

Mr.. Murray. solicitor-general Of
Scotland, remarked one day ut the
Mitre Tavern to DR.. johnson that
truth will always bear an examina-
| ton" to which DR.. johnson replied:
Eyes, sir, but 1t is painful to be forced
| to defend it. Consider. sir, how should
you like, though conscious of your in
nocence to be tried before a. jury for
| capital crime once week"
Football. the most popular and the
most interesting intercollegiate COM
petitive sport, has been brought into
court again and again. Some of the
| charges presented have already been
fully answered. Some of them are I'M
just and incorrect. Some of them are
| open to radical differences of opinion
based upon opposing points of view.
President Eliot, of Harvard, in his
last annual report. expressed strong
| objections to football as now played;
and his objections-at least in part
were at the time editorially sustained
by ',The Nation" and by many other in
huential periodicals.; while later Pro-
fessor Paul van Dyke, of Princeton, set
forth in 1.-THE outlook" lin the main
very sanely and conservatively) his
opinions as to various evils associated
with the game. / should like to call
attention to certain facts which seem
to me to refute the existence of, or at
leost to palliate. some of the evils COM
planned of. l shall try to make no
statement that has not sound basis or
observation or experience to support it.
l. The "extreme publicity" of the
game has. indeed, it's disadvantages for
college students I would not under
take to defend the abstract proposition
that it is good for an undergraduate to
be as much in the public eye as is d
PLAYER on the team of one OF the Dig
universities, But the following line of
thought largely reconcilcs me to this
element of the SituatiOn: Exercise, es-
pecially during youth, is one OF the
fundamental requirements of health;
its s-intellectual and educa-
tional as well as physical-are much IN
creased by associated enjoyment, and
by concurrent mental activity; ana
competition adds greatly to both these
in all forms of athletic sports; base
ball and football are at present the
only self-supporting competitive inter-
collegiate athletics; and many OF the
others would be, under existing cir
cumstances. rendered impossible were
it not for the financial aid derived from
the football receipts. Moreover, while
this extreme publicity thus indirectly
makes possible the extension of the
benefits of exercise to hundreds who do
not play football at all, it serves anoth-
er purpose in holding before the
American public an ideal which, if not
the highest conceivable, is yet abso-
Iutely associated from. and is a far
more wholesome one than. that of the
pluto rat, or of that even less admi:-
able type. the self-styled aristocrat-
figures that are. unfortunately, not
without undue prominence III American
life. DR.. Holmes long ago COM
planned apropos of our "chrysoaristoc-
racy." that our young men must gid
their spurs but need not win the m,
and I'D led that he believed in "no arts
tocra ~ without pluck as It's backbone.
AS compared with these exemplars,
and with the results of their admixture,
type that einbodies self-denial. Sc
we're toll Indifference to fatigue.
obedience to orders, absolute physical
courage, quick and accurate thinking
coIncident with extreme physical effort
is not unworthy of attention and OF
degree of respect, and it is not strange
that it eAcites interest and evokes en-
thusiasm. Were it less rare. football
would doubtless be less popular.
"Should we so dote on courage were IL
commOner:
2. The "disproportionate exaltation
of the football hero i'll the college
world" the 'air of hysterical exag-
gerat;On" which surrounds the game.
the "crude and vociferous criticism.
blame. and praise of the players,
might all he modified with advantage;
but some of these things are the in
variable penalties of publicity, and all
of them are due to the fact that the
game in a broad sense meets the re-
uuire,nents of the situation. At
time when the average undergraduate
is--as far as privation is concerned-so
unprotected that, if he were a COM
modify. he might be the most obJec-
tionahIe article on the tariff list: and
when so many college students are in
danger, by reason of the wealth and
lack of discretion Of their parents. OF
drifting into lives of enervating luxury,
it is not to be wondered at that the
more striking manly virtues. con-
splcuuusly exhibited. should appeal to
both the student body and the Amcri-
can public To quote again our wis
est New England philosopher. nearly
fifty years ago DR.. Holmes wrote: Il
am satisfied that such a set Of black
coated. stiff -jointed. soft-muscled.
paste-compleXioned youth as we can
boast in our Atlantic cities never be-
fore sprang from loins of Anglo-SaXon
lineage Anything is better
than this white-b looded degeneration
to which we all tend.
2. The objections based on the lack
OF proper proportion between the inter-
est shown in intercollegiate football and
it's players. and that excited by inter-
collegiate debates or by classroom
honors Ia favorite comparison of the
opponents of the game), do not bear
analysis.
Physical development and endeavor
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