Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-01-15
MAINE EDITORIAL COMMENT.
Common Sense and Football.

Bangor News)
The big newspapers of this country
are still discussing the ACCESSIBILITY of
modifying the rules of football so as
to make it a harmless game. The thing
is impossible. 1t is the risk and the
strenuousness of football that make it
so enSrossing. One cannot shoot ele-
plants with air pistols. NO device
known to man can remove the athletic
element from football and leave any
thing better or more cnliVenlnS than
IN old game of tag" 1t is because
the game IS filled with deeds of daring
and splendid originality, that it is so
popular with our young men today.
AS much as candid men dcplorc the
graft and trickery, which are employed
at times by some of the colleges to Sc
cure accomplished players. rs much as
decent people regret that some players
become brutes in their desire for tri-
umph, the grand old game of football
the game that has been played by ath-
letic and manly young men of the Eng
fish speaking race for ccnturies-this
game cannot be reconstructed into
something similar to three old cats"
and retain its hold upon the affections
OF vigorous young men. Principal
White of the Bangor High school stat
ed one side of the question in nut
shell. when he claimed that young
men could take a course in any school
and graduate with honor without
learning anything about football or
baseball.
Mr.. White was right, as he usually
is. But if we are going to have ath-
letics of any kind in school-if the
boys are to be permitted to follow the
customs of those who went before
thcm-lct us have games that call forth
all there is i'll the young men. a col
lcge education is a disciplining and an
arranging of the mind. and more. 1t
is Il testing of character and manhood.
The student who will Intentionally
main or disable a competitor in
game would under other conditions
pick a pocket or deliver a knife-thrust
in the dark. Our high schools and
colleges bring out the latent DISPOSE
tons of the students. They give free
play to all that is good and AL that is
bad in the disposition of every
one. And in what better way
can lltdn OF al coWdIulN ulluei
graduate be brought to book and
sh;med into decency than by exposing
him to the view of his associates" The
public school is the only true republic
In school every young man is valued
for what he s-not for the wealth
which he commands. and not for what
his parents are. And the more severe
the strain is which is placed upon the
character OF the undergraduate. the
better it will be for him in after life.
No football eleven and no baseball
min" should accept any young man to
membership who values success more
than fair play. Most of the young
men who participate in athletic con-
tests are fair. If they are not fair
from natural sentiment and breeding
they curb their natural tendencies for
fear of exposure.
Perhaps. in these days when paid
policemen stand on every corner to pro-
tcct the weak and restrain the strong
ii does not matter so very much
whether football is retained or thrown
out; but in the interests of humanity
and of manhood and decency, if foot
ball is going to survive in our schools.
let us have football. 1t is a sport that
* spoiled by being diluted. Let us
have football straight" or nothing.
There can never be any satisfactory
compromise. Those who dream of
such a thing. do not know the first Gle
mentS of human nature.