The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-29

Solon Il. Jacobs in the WoodWard building.
 crossed the University river. and he can renew his college days only by wireless, Get your best means of touching his heart and of arousing his love for his alma mater. You will often find it in ! royal struggle for a bag of wind. Nothing to gain but the deoision. Nothing to loss but prestige. But he watches the game as if life depended upon it. and no pre- cccupation' of his mind is so absorbing d: he follows 1t, and with 1t the varying n'tunes of friend, or, as he temporarils calls tllem, foe. In seeing that struggle, t,e gray tips of winter are forgotten, the lush of the spring time of youth has t,rned, and many fond memories of alma mater are reyivified as by the fire of love.
 And what do you get out of it? You find that this heat of looking at the game, when the game Is over, Is transferred with longing eyes to the university. You find that your alumnus, congealing with the absence of years. will again becomN your moving university scout. You find that you have awakened and resteadied his interest, and you find, as when un- der the great Pollard, the name of Ala hama all over the map, you get 90 per cent of the high school graduates to train through life as against 40 per cent when you did not have Pollard. Don't you want to play to a full house, and don't athletics give 1t to you?
 As to Graduating
 Personally, one would rather see his son graduated at the head of a baseball CT football team than at the head of any other course In the university. Any boy that can so graduate can take care of himself anywhere In the world and will have success written all over him and his endeavors.
 LOOK over there at formerly little now big, Hugh Morrow; he graduated first in baseball. and all else if anything he grad uated first in has long been forgotten. 1e still has the bat in hand and he is going to knock home run for governor of Ala bama, and we expect you will all be on the rootoS's bench when he comes In.
 Let us have all charity and all sympathy for the poor man who does not love athletics. Certainly he de- serves our pity, for he has lost the best of life While the world has grown closer and more neighborly, his mind has failed to grasp the situation, but has gotten contracted. Sometimes II hardens into little ball of self and self opinions, and no thaw of spring can melt 1t: no heat of summer car movc it. He '.hasn't got a half-penny God pity you
 And above all things. don't you peo- pie who are running this university imagine that your alumni return here just to be dignified at commencement time. They may grace a stove pipt hat, and Prince Albert coat, but theii fondest memories run riot at the recol- lection of the time when they had neither. They had rather return te their sophomore days and again enact the fool than attempt to play the wise man in which they have so often failed
 And so let us have athletics, ath- letics conducted by those who love ath- letics. and then you will have common sense athletics. All should be required to enter athletics of some sort of theii choice, and to keep to their class and keep trained for their class.
 of course, elimination is the process that selects the best. and when We play abroad we play our best. but let thal not mean, as it should not mean, that only the best engage in athletics.
 The Purchase Price of Life
 Life is for sale. and can be bought the purchase price is heathful bodily exercise with hygienic surroundings payable on the installment plan, SC much every day as you lengthen the days of your life.
 The wages of sin and of laxneSs is tn, same identical coin; and if life bess anc gets an occasional extension from tint tn time, such extension is often but an other name for physical misery.
 This university is the property of tht people. You who control it are It's ten porary storekeepers. We want to buN vour goods; we want you to have For sal the best the market affords. for We Vii Lave none other and we look to you t' keep such for us.
 pect you to make them strong in mind but not less strcng in body; we expect you to correct their mental deficiencies and we demand that you correct ti1eii physical deficiencies. and that you senc them forth to engage in the conflict of lifs