Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-03-06
ELIOT ON
 FOOTBALL Harvard President Says IL is Not a Desirable Game For
 Gentlemen
SAYS IT IS FIERCE
Basketball and Hockey Are Also Placed Under the Ban..He Also Says Excessive Cheering is Alb.
 solutely Unnatural.

Boston, March 6.-President C. W. Eliot of Harvard university in his an- nual report which will be presented to the board of overseers this week maintains that football, despite new rules, remains an undesired game either for gentlemen to play or mul- titudes of spectators to witness. President Eliot declares that football is properly described by the adjec- tive fierce and that no game in which recklessness in causing or re- ceiving bodily injury is fit for col lege use. Basketball and hockey are placed in the same class with foot. ball and President Eliot advises that Intercollegiate contests in any one sport be limited to two games all other games to be between teams made up at Harvard. He also de- cries the "excesses of cheering" which characterize present intercollegiate II.
 The report says:
 "The game of football was some what improved by the new rules ex- tOrted last year from it's creators and managers by the pressure of public opinion. Under the new rules the game is livelier and therefore more interesting to watch. It gives appro- priate opportunities to several kinds of natural athlete; and 1t affords few CT opportunities for foul play and brutality, whether deliberate and planned or sudden and accidental, than the game under the former rules afforded.
 Public opinion also compelled the employment of better kind of off, cial although in respect to the number of officials, the new rules were vio- lated at most of the principal games by consent of the coaches and cap- tains The injuries indicted on the Harvard players were of the same In table of per ctntages the ratio former rules. but they were much fewer in number The spirit of the game however remains essentially the same '3s fi ~.
 It is properly described by the ad. jective ''fierce"-a term which is commonly applied to the game by its advocates
 It therefore remains an undesirable game for gentlemen to play or for multitudes of spectators to watch
 No game Is fit for college uses in which men are often so knocked or crushed into insensibility or immo. bility that 1t is a question whether by the application of water and stim- ulents they can be brought to and en- abled to go on playing No game is fit for college uses in which reckless ness in causing or suffering serious bodily injuries promotes efficiency and SO Is taught and held up for ad- miration.
 An extreme recklessness remains a grave objection to the game of foot ball and it also makes basketball and hockey as developed in recent years. undesirable games.
 President Eliot says:
 "The gross exageration of all con- petitive sports Is now working incal- culable harm to schools. colleges and universities. The first step should pe to limit closely the number of inter- collegiate contests in each sport. Two such contests in each sport would be ample to maintain sufficient interest in all the sports.
 The preparation for these two con. tests should be procured solely through domestic competitions. the number and variety of the home com petitions being much increased. From the educational point of view the val ue of any sport is to he tested chiefly by the number of persons who habit ually take active part in it for pleas ure during the education period and enjoy 1t in after-life. Tried by this test. football is the least valuable of all college sports.
 President Eliot refers to the great waste of money in connection with intercollegiate games and says:
 The fact that 1t is not the univer- sity's money which is wasted does not, however. invalidate the state ment that the exagyeration of athletic sports leads to a great waste of mon- ey. This waste Is particularly morti- fying because 1t Is made by well ed- ucated men. One of the sources of waste of money Is the belief that no team or crew can do Its best unless 1t is stimulated by a continuous roar of cheering.
 Continuous pumped cheering dur ing good and bad ball playing alike is absolutely unnatural and has no counterpart in the contests of real life. The most intense players hear it only at intervals. On the part of the spectators it is a weak, hysteri- cal and utterly inefficient denlonstra- ton
 President Eliot discusses some of the arguments in favor of highly competitive sports and concludes:
 It Is high time that the whole pro fession of teaching in school. college and university unite to protest against the present exaggerstion of athletic sports during the whole pe- rioi of eiucation. and especially to bring competitive sports between schools and between colleges within reasonable limits and establish the supremacy of intellectual and moral r-x