OCR Text |
Show College Amusements. By John Bascom. eMUSEMISKTS of college llfo have undergone a change afcta to the division of Intellectual Interests. They have become profes slonal amusements, like those of tho circus of thentre: something some-thing to bo seen rather than to be shared, something labored for on tho one slilo and paid for ou the other. Crowded llfo, tho llfo of cities, which Is at oiice near and remote, Inevitably tends to professional amusements. They call for no participation lu tho spectators, and no social sympathy between them. Those Idly waiting to be amused becomo over more critical "and exacting, less re sourceful In themselves and more dependent on others. They must be pleased, and tho task becomes an Increasingly difficult one. Tho commands of tho amphitheatre lay as an absolute law on those whose lives were held cheap In ministering to popular pleasure. A scrub game of ball, no matter how recreative recrea-tive to the participants, gives no satisfaction as a spectacle. Football demands severe training, a sacrifice of every competing purpose, and Incurs serious tfek. simply that those who play may glvo sufficient excitement to those who do not play. , Young men have only about so much enthusiasm to spend, and If It squandered In amusement, It Is necessarily lost to productive labor. Enthusiasm Enthusi-asm ought to run In the channels of their own lives, and so buoy up and bear forward their own achievements, like well freighted vessels. If this enthusiasm makes its claims on others. It leaves those who generate It, like tho Koinan youth who crowded the coliseum, on Ignoblo baud. Professional amusements mean the breaking up of free, personal, communal effort, and putting In Its, place tho strained efforts and strong passions which sway men backward and forward as mobs. The passion for sport which prevails In our universities Is to be explained, In part, as on effort to regain that unity which has been lost In tho dispersion of academic work. The Atlantic. v X ST |