The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-14
Mind and Muscle.

| w g observe with some degree OF
resignation, we confess. that the coll
| leges that nourish the baseball craze,
| and put the greatest emphasis on the
development of the physical force of
the student body, are reaping what
they have SoWn. The brute within us
| is striving all the time to get the up
per hand, anyhow, and when the ia
Guilty and trustees of a college so far
forget themselves as to encourage the
young men in the dominance of muscle
over mind, and yell like Comanche In
dams over a baseball game the decay
Of that college in all the elements of
real strength may be expected.
The boys in most of our colleges are
the masters. They feel themselves the
dominant factor in the college life,
which they really are. They laugh at
authority and do not own their OBJ
igation to obey. The bottom rail is
on top. The professors speak of the
deplorable situation with bated breath
and sigh for the good old times when
che young men stood in awe of the
professor and were glad to do his
bidding.
Some will be ready to say that the
ball craze has nothing to do with this
wretched change in our college dis
cipline, but we believe it has had IL
great deal to do with it. The devotees
of the physical development fad viii
apply the usual epithet of ignorance to
as, of course, but we are not writing
thsq article for them :but for Che
masses of people who read this paper
and who have some sense. We believe
with all our mind that all this nom
sense about the necessity OF robust
physique has taken the emphasis from
the intellectual realm and placed it
upon the physical. 1t has borne it's
legitimate fruit. The brutal has come
10 the front and the college is mas
tered by it,
Within proper bounds. and to a GER
tain extent, the attention to physical
development and growth among col
.ege students is wise and necessar-'.
Athletic training is all proper and
right when it is safely surrounded and
limited, but that is not what we have
in mind. Our readers know what we
mean. This magnifying of the physi-
cal over and above and beyond every
other earthly consideration has devel-
oped in the student body an over
weening desire to become the mon
1rchs of all they survey, and they have
0VerpoWered the college authority and
trampled it under foot
We need to get back to the days Of
the student rather than of the bully.
student is generally gentleman.
he is IlVlng IN realm above the at
mosphere that surrounds the rowdy
He respects the rights of others ana
honors those who are trying to leai
him into the light On the other hand,
the bully glories in the merely physi-
cal and brutal. He delights in rebel
lion against constituted authority. He
is accustomed to conquer on the field
by the strength of his arm or his leg,
and he brings this spirit with him into
his college relations.
We may be wrong, but we think not.
We have paid a good deal of attention
to those colleges that boast of their
teams" and find little time to magnify
the mental strength of their boys. and
in each and every one of those colleges
we hear the most deplorable stories Of
the lack of discipline and the shame
full conduct of the boys at home and
abroad.