The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1906-02-03
WHACKl WHACKl WHACK |
FOOT BALL GETS 1T HARD.
President Eliot Of Harvard in His An
nual Report Declares Game u
wholly Unit for Colleges
and Schools.

Cambridge, Mass, Feb. 3.--An unqual-
ified condemnation of the game Of foot
ball, a. II is played, is contained in the
annual report Of President Charles w.
Eliot 60 the board of overseers Of Har-
ward university. The report, which was
made public last night deals principally
with questions Of educational policy.
President Eliot says on the subject Of
foot ball; "The American game Of foot
ball as now played, is wholly unfit for
colleges and schools.
a(11 Il causes an unreasonable mum
Der of serious injuries and deaths; not
one In Ave OF the men that play foot
ball several seasons escape without in
jury properly called serious, and of the
twenty TO thirty picked players who
play hard throughout a season, hardly a
man escapes serious injury. The pub
lie has been kept ignorant concerning
the number and gravity of these injuries,
the prevailing practice among coaches
and players having been to conceal or
make light OF the injuries sustained.
Many Of the serious injuries are of such
a nature sprains, strains, wrenches, dis
locations, rupture Of ligainents and mus
cles and shocks to the brain--that In
all probability they can never be per-
fectly repaired.
a(2) 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
Iof the actions Of the players are inyisi-
bic TO the spectators and even to the
referee and umpire; hence much profit
able foul play escapes notice.
"(4) The game offers many opportuu-
tiles for several players to combine vio-
lently attacking one player.
"(5) There Is no such thing as gen.
erosity between combatants, any more
than there is in war.
"(6) Acts of brutality are constantly
committed, partly as results Of the pas
sions naturally aroused in fighting, but
often on well grounded calculations Of
profit toward victory
"(f) As a spectacle, for persons who
know what the game really is, foot
ball is more brutahzing than prize fight.
ing, cock fighting or bull fighting. Re.
garded as combat between highly
trained men, the prize ring has great
advantages over the foot ball field, for
the rules Of the prize ring are more
humane than those Of foot ball, and they
can be, and often are, strictly enforced.
The fight in a prize ring between two
men facing each other, is perfectly visi-
BILE, so that there is no secret abomina-
tions as in foot ball. Yet prize fighting
is Illegal
A{s) The game sots up a wrong
kind Of hero--the man who uses his
strt. 9Th brutally with reckless diere-
gard both Of the injuries he may inilict
on others and OF the injuries be may
suffer. That is not the best kind Of
courage or the best kind of hero. The
courage which educated people dugllt to
admire is not that reckless, unmotived
courage that risks life or limb to help
or save Others. or that risks popular
condemnation in speaking the truth, OF
in espousing the cause of the weak OF
the maligned.
All these evils of foot ball have now
descended from the colleges into the
secondary schools, where they are work.
ing great moral mischief. II is clearly
the duty of the colleges which have
permitted these lnonstrous evils TO grow
up and to become intense to purge them.
selves Of such immoralities, and To do
what they can to help the secondary
schools also. Intercollegiate and inter.
scholastic foot ball ought to be prohib-
tied until reasonable game has been
formulated and thoroughly exenpliiied
in the practice of individual institutions
Il is childish to suppose that the ath.
letic authorities which have permitted
foot ball to become brutal, cheating
deInoralizing game can be trusted Ia
reform it,