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Show COLLEGES fUST IE RIVALRY t Interschool Contests Essential; Essen-tial; Intramural Games Not Sufficient. Football Only Branch Demanding De-manding Special Train-ing Train-ing and, Sturdiness. Kecent statements by President Schur-man Schur-man of Cornell and other educators, adverting ad-verting to tho system of intercoHegiat a i athletics that obtained before wc entered tho war and upon a somewhat reduced scale after our participation therein, have naturally attracted a great deal of attention, writes Lawrence Perry in thft New York Post. While it is inevitable that there will be a change in the conduct con-duct of sport at institutions which have a sense of responsibility, both with r-grard r-grard to their own interest and that of tho young men affiliated therewith, wo may conceive it to be not at all likely that rr. Sehurman's radical theories will bo applied even at the seat of learning of which he is tho head. He would reduce intercollegiate competition to . the very minimum, substituting" therefor a compulsory com-pulsory system- of intramural athletic. and military training that would Involve the entire student oly. To this propositi the Cornell Alumni News interposes emphatic dissent, pointing point-ing to the sane conduct of competitive sport at Ithaca, the due sense of proportion pro-portion to the essential work of the university uni-versity that has been observed, nnd the sound economy with which athletics have been conducted. All of which. I think Cornell men and college luen generally gen-erally will regard as points well taken. Luby's Objections. But leaving Cornell nnd Vr. Sr-hnr-man's attitude for a moment, let ua turn to an interesting" monograph recently re-cently issued by Lieutenant Luby, M. , IT. S. N., which bears strongly upon the outgiving of the president of Cornell. Lieutenant Luby, too, would throw tho present system of intercollegiate athletics ath-letics into the discard, but liases his proposal purely upon the ground of physical phys-ical well-being. 1-1 is contention is that the centering of attention upon a. comparatively com-paratively small group of highly gifted athletes, involves a pernicious influence which tends in its wider aspects not only to leave med iocrit y to shift as best It may, but does downright physical harm to the crack' sprinter, oarsmen, football and baseball men and the like; these men, trained and groomed and handled like thoroughbred racers, contends Luby, Lu-by, leave college and enter business with constitutions undermined and vital organs or-gans prey to various evils. He knows many a man, he states, who was a powerful pow-erful athlete iu his college days, but is now a broken wreck purely the result of athletic overstrain. Wide Participation. Now, the strides which have been made at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Part-mouth Part-mouth and Cornell in the development of intramural baseball are well known. Here, In addition to the varsity and scrub nines, are class teams, fraternity teams, club t earns, tea ms made up of members of the staffs of college periodicals, periodi-cals, and scratch outfits organized at the moment. Two years ago I conducted an investigation with a view of learning Kvhat the various institutions were doing do-ing for the "boy on the bleachers." The findings were altogether surprising nnd gratifying. In ail cases a high percentage percent-age a vast majority of students were engaged in some sort of competitive athletics. ath-letics. Rowing, for irrstance: Intramural regattas re-gattas are now an established feature at most of the great aquatic universities or were, before the war. And every inducement in-ducement was offered in the "way of boathouso privileges and equipment for competitive races. At Wisconsin instruction in-struction in watermanship was offered ns one of fhe activities In which a freshman fresh-man and sophomore could satisfy university uni-versity requirements in physical education. educa-tion. In the latter part of J01R about 1 students took the rowing course. In the spring of 1915 t went y-two intramural crew s w ere in ox'steneo. At Harvard, before the- war. in addition addi-tion to the large university and freshman squads, some 200 students were engaged in competitive rowing as members of dormitory, group and class crews; say. in all 'l DO students participating in rowing. row-ing. At Princeton in l'.U5 and in 1!' 13 the visitor to the shores of Lake Carnegie Car-negie could see twelve and thirteen crews In the water at one time; indeed, in tho summer before tho war tho hull equipment was not adequate to accommodate accom-modate the number of men who wished to row at one time. There wns intramural intra-mural rowing at Yale long before intercollegiate inter-collegiate contests were eVen thought of. Cornell's university and freshman crows have ever been but the outwnrd gilding of aquatics at IthacH, where sport among a fireat body of students hud, before the war, attninrd a scope and a sienllfio standard nnd a spirit that wer equalled nowhere else. Then there hi tho system of -winter sport wM'-h in-" vnlvos a goodly percentage of 1 lie students stu-dents in the snow -b..')1. colleges --nm-f-moul h. William'-', I"ni veri t y of Ycr-m"nl, Ycr-m"nl, 'ViJtalc. Middlebury, New Jlamp-sh Jlamp-sh i re Slate and A mlici st . Football Requires Training. 1'"ootbfill, ray what one -will, is not in any way a sport, that lends Itself to intramural in-tramural indulgi-nee. Jf is a -bard game, a dangerous j:ame, and only the sturdy and only those who have the build and t he speeial r.ed knowledge in the wa of proteeting themselves may play'tho gann lo any advantage. It. has its great, value tn tho university .scheme as a Ptimulmj to Hie student body lo mako something of t henis'-lvVs ,in art athlet ic way, no matJer how humble, and the glamour nf the "big game" has and i-anuot fail tn Iihvc Its beivfieial reaction in the way of exalted ideals of physical fitness and manly endeavor. The JSlahans. Brick leys and llohev Kakers as influences may not be ov-H'st iniat.pd. All in all. Hie years preceding our en-trance en-trance into tin war had seen tho beginning begin-ning iuid extraordinary development, of the intra-uiural id-a., promulgated not ns the rival to or the enemy (,f Intereol-l"gia Intereol-l"gia t e. sport, but as complementary thereto. And as Hie result, of Rludy In this respect 1 Jim quit e convinced tha t the t'cMitri pt fori of norma 1 olleuiaf c a e-t e-t i v it i will pee its root in tji-d growt h provided thr; corse which I 'r. SVillirman would apply ' t he climinat inn of ytimu-ia ytimu-ia I tug intci-eolleuir. t e con I est ;i nd t h sub:-1 1 1 u I i'lti 1 h'Ti-fnr 'f a wen k snl ntinri (,( canned athletics) is prevented through lark ofVuppori. As said, the former cxtravngant conduct con-duct of intercollegiate sport will undoubtedly un-doubtedly be curt Hi led at many institutions institu-tions beginning ne:t spring, and the ath-ileijc ath-ileijc interregnum caused by the war will !he found to hae given opportunity for itho elimination of other abuses, but that I the whole system of competitive, sport pinong colleges will be abandoned t:-; unit un-it h i 1 1 k ; hie. i oil cannot denature t h ! Ai.o-ri. an b-v in that way. Il would b 1 in ( -ce.-t n ig to coti-udcr linn- complet v j our na I I'uia I s; em of rpe-eia 1 iza t ion in ! : -port . as in other fiehK made for our I rend- adaptability in : pe,-ializt;.K for war -Willi v.-ha t e u t the world has ma rk"d wit ii op- ii-uio":' ! ed surprise, Gi'ifhUi iToud of Souvenir. i"h-rk ' Iri frith is proud of n iermnTi helmet P'-nt hi in i'V an urinv friend. It ir. as th:-T nd robd p b-t of work many a ball player's faL -- , |
