COLLEGE ATHLETICS.
The abuses to which the Carnegie Foundation Report on American College Athletics called attention have now been brought into the sphere of practical action as a result of the very radical declaration by President Lowell of Harvard. Attacking the tendency of college alumni to over-emphasize the spectacular in intercollegiate athletics, to the detriment of physical training for the whole body of students, President Lowell expresses his belief that America is obsessed with the Roman idea of sports as a spectacle instead of the Greek principle of athletics as recreation and pleasure for its own sake. His suggestion that Harvard's intercollegiate athletic contests should be reduced to a single match in each major sport, and that more attention be given to intramural athletics from which the whole student body, instead of a few selected players and tens of thousands of spectators, benefit has already caused amazement among college athletes and directors. Doubtless the suggestion, which has been made repeatedly before, but never with such conspicuous authority, will evoke a chorus of vigorous and superficial criticism, but unquestionably it will appeal to the sound sense of the majority of thoughtful people of this country and contribute toward the inevitable reform.
Previous page
