The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-08-17
Arc College Athletics Physically In
furious?

This question has been answered en-
phatically in the affirmative by President
JAMES Of the Illinois State University,
and his position is sustained and re-
affirmed by DR.. G. FRANK LYDsToN, a
professor Of our College Of Physicians
and Surgeons, In paper in the last num-
Der of the New York Medical Journal.
President JAMES, after investigating
the subject for more than five years,
has come to conclusions which are sum-
married. by DR.. LYDsToN thus:
-The severe strain undergone BY college athletes
largely UNITS them for business or professional
life, leaving them unable 70 play mans part In
AFFAIRS because Of the physical weakness Induced
by overe1ertion. Nearly all football players.
baseball men and lawn tennis experts have weak
hearts and arc moro liable TO diseases Of other
forms than men who exercise moderately"
President JAMES announces that he
will shortly publish statistics collated
by him which will prove conclusively
that the college athlete does not develop
into the vigorous man who docs thin gs. Y
As to tennis players, for example, he
declares that there is scarcely one OF
the stop notchers' but, has suffered
from heart disease, many Of them hav-
ing died OF that disease between the
ages of forty and forty-ive years, or Mt
a time OF life when they should have
been at their best physically. Few of
the winners Of the Oxford and Cam
bridge foot races, Of which the records
for a hundred years are available, ever
achieved moro than moderate success.
The same is. true of the strokes on boat
crews and of 'crack" football players.
DR.. LYDsToN says there is nothing new
in this, for the whole subject was thor
oughly gone over many years ago by
Sir BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON Of
London, the results Of whose examina-
ton of the careers of college athletes
were similar to those Of President
JAMES.
Athletics for health and athletics for
prowess DR.. LYDsToN separates broadly,
pronounoing the first =the ideal of physi-
cal training and condemning the other
without measure. 1The idea that the
celebrity in athletics is rarely celebrity
in intellectual or commercial achieve
ments," he says, cannot be too often
reiterated" Mo,eover. he lays down
as indisputable the proposition that
extraordinary physical development is
incompatible with extraordinary intel
lectual development, and @the individual
who accom- plishes most in the field Of
intellectual endeavor is rarely distin-
guished for phenomenal muscular devel-
opment or physical endurance.
DR.. LYpsToN, however. gives high
value to physical development il only
1t is normal and symmetrical, above the
average. but by no means extraordinary"
Such a development has been proved
to be capable Of the best intellectual
endeavor. He leaves out Of considera-
ton to genius, whom he calls
sport to be considered chiefly from
the standpoint Of psyohopathy': and
neither the athletic sport nor the
genius in his estimation, 10 as impor-
tant in tho social scheme or a. q racial
integer as the man OF we'll balanced
brain and muscle development.
Accordingly, speaking from many
years Of personal experience with ath-
letics and In observ.Ii. athletes, he lays
down the rule that after having attained
4 fair deueoIoi muscular development