The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1906-02-03

'-The American game OF football as now
played is wholly UNIT for colleges and
schools declares President Eliot in his
annual report 10 the board OF overseers
OF Harvard university which was made
public yesterday at Cambridge. All the
evils OF the game he says, have descend
ed from the colleges into the secondary
schools. where they are working great
moral mischief.
1T is clearly the duty ~ the colleges
which have permitted these monstrous
evils 10 grow up and TO become intense
TO purge themselves OF such immoral-
ties and do what they can TO help the
secondary schools 20 purge themselves
also. Intercollegiate and interscholastic
football ought TO be prohibited until a
reasonable game has been formulated and
thoroughly exemplined in the practice OF
individual institutions. ~ is childish 10
suppose that the athletic authorities which
have permitted football 70 become bru-
tai, cheating, demoralizng game can he
trusted to reform IL.
President Eliot declares the evils OF
football as follows;
"Q) 1t causes an unreasonable num-
one IN five OF the mean that play football
several seasons escape without injury
properly called serious and OF the
0 10 80 picked players who play hard
throughout a season hardly a man es-
capes serious injury. The public has been
kept ignorant concerning the number ana
gravity OF these injuries. the prevailing
practice among coaches and players hav-
ing been 10 conceal or make light or the
injuries sustained. Many OF the serious IN
juries are OF such a nature-sprains,
strains, wrenches, dislocations. ruptures
OF lisaments and mucles. and shocks to
the brain--that In all probability they can
never be perfectly repaired.
''CD Violations OF the rules OF the game
by coaches, trainers and players are highly
profitable. and are constantly perpetrated
by all parties.
''(3) In any hard-fought game many OF
the actions of the players are Invisible 10
the spectators and even 10 the referee
and umpire; hence much profitable ioul
play escapes notice
.'1D The game offers many opportuni-
>ties for several players To combine IN
violently attacking one player.
.'Cs) There IS no such thing as gem
erosity between combatants, any more
than there Is in war.
'(6 Acts of brutality are constantly
committed. partly as results of the pas
eions naturally aroused in nghuns' put
often on well-grounded calculations or
profit toward victory.
"GD As n spectacle, for persons VINO
know what the game really Is. football
Is more brutslizing than prize-hghting.
cock-flghting or bull-fghting. Regarded
as a combat between highly trained men
the prize ring has great advantages over
the football field, for the rules OF the
prize ring are more humane than those
OF football, and they can be. and often
are, strictly enforced. The fight In a
prize ring between two men facing eaeh
other is perfectly visible, so that there
are no secret abominations as IN football
Yet prize fighting Ia illegal.
"(sD The game sets up a wrong Kind or
hero--the man who uses his strength
brutality with a reckless disregard both
of the injuries ne may suffer and OF the
injuries ne may infiict on others That
Is not the best kind OF courage or the
best kind Of hero. The courage which
educated people ought TO admire Is not
that reckless unmotived courage. but
the courage that risks life or limb To help
or save others or that risks popular con-
demnation in speaking the truth or in es-
pousing the cause Of the weah or the ma
1igned"