Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-11-14
TUESDAY. November IA. 1911.
AVIATION WORSE THAN FOOT.
BALL.

BALL.
IL was a daring interviewer-or was
il a humorist? who asked Mr. Charles
w. Eliot on the eve of his departure
for the Far East what he thought OF
Ilarvard's slump in football at Prince
ton. The former president of Har-
ward University professed indiffer-
ence. but he was led on to repeat his
heroic views about football. College
men who played it ran the risk OF
fatal or disabling injuries, and
therefore il was worse than prize
fighting. And then this question was
asked "Is there anything to your
mind worse thin football" eyes,
said MIR. Elliot, "aviation. That's
dsmoralizing to the spectators. They
don't go TO see the aeronaut in
flight. but with the anticipation OF
seeing him fall and perhaps be Kill
ed"
During the game at Princeton an
acroplane with two persons in 1t came
clicking and whirring over the field
o. valor, and the spectators therefore
lad an opportunity to revel in de-
moralizatirn. Mr.. Eliot was justified
OF his aversion to football. for Har-
ward player broke an arm in the shock
OF battle: the occupants of the aero
plane, however, enjoyed immunity
from death or manning. Now we
think that most people who go to see
that miracle of motion the aeroplane
ceaving the unsubstantial air and APP.
parently defying the law of gravity
feel no thrill of hope that they will
see the voyager fall to his death an
unacceptable heap of humanity. II
the wonder of man outlying tn
birds that attract and holds them
sDellbound. Most of them probably
would avert their fates if the ma
chine came down wing over wing
with the hier doomed to certain
death, and they would be unspeak-
obly shocked by the horror of the
thing. 1t is the great educators
theory of Generalization that accounts
alike for his objection to football
aud his criticism of avition as a spec
tacle. The fact that college men de-
light in their rough game and the air.
man enjoys the excitement of flving is
left out of his reckoning. MIR. Eliot,
on leaving for the Far East, said that
Japan was ahead of us as regards
popular education. On his arrival in
that country to lecture on arbitration
and pea e he will have no difficulty in
witnessing bout of jiu-jitsu. sport
which is or can be made infinitely
more dangerous than football or prize
fighting under the Marquis of Queens
berry's rules. He will see a wrestler,
upright, alert and confident one in
slant, whlrled through he air by in
visible dexterity and falling, as if
dropped balloon, on some unprepared
part of'his person the next instant.
II will not be able to follow with his
eye, watch he ever so closely, the
Ranges from equilibrium to sudden
and unaccountable inversion that oc-
cur in this matching of wits and sim
ews, for all the world, so rapid is the
play, like the attraction and dis
persal of streaming atoms in kali
idoscope- And physical education of
the kind that meets with Mr.. Eliot's
disspprobation Japan is indeed far
ahead of US. If he were to lecture
her little men upon the baneful in
filences Of jiu-jitsu, he would have
cold attention.
Yet it is a strategy of offence
as well as of protection, and the
masters of the art can kill with a
pressure on the vulnerable spot or
snap limb like a pipestem. Amer
lea, We fancy, will always be ad-
dicted to football and boxing as
Japan is to jiu-jitsu. There are saving
virtues in all such games when played
in good temper as sports. Jiu-jitsu
can be made harmless and fascinating
in its manifestations, however vio-
lent it looks to the uninitiated, and
perhaps blend of its cunning with
the virilities of football would give
America a new and more absorbing
spectacle. The matter might be sug-
gested TO the distinguished traveller