Volume Ii Part 9 (1/2)

Next to the physical development and the maintenance of the health of all the students and teachers of an inst.i.tution, the main purpose of athletics as education is to provide recreation as a preparation for study rather than as a subst.i.tute for study. But, intercollegiate athletics having won and retained unquestioned supremacy in our colleges, students do not tolerate the idea of a conflicting interest.

Even the nights preceding the great contests must be free from the interference of intellectual concerns. An editorial in one of our college weeklies makes this point clear. If a member of the faculty ventured to put the matter so extremely, he would be charged with exaggeration. But in this paper the students navely present their conviction that even the most signal opportunities for enjoying literature must be sacrificed by the entire student body in order that they may get together and yell in preparation for their function of sitting in the grandstand. In this case the conflicting interest appeared in no less a person than Alfred Noyes. For a geographically isolated community to hear the poet was an opportunity of a college lifetime. Yet the students wrote as follows:--

v 'THE RALLY _vs_. NOYES

'Returning alumni this year were somewhat surprised to find the Hall used for a lecture on the eve of our great gridiron struggle, and some were very much disappointed. The student body was only partially reconciled to the situation and was represented in great part by Freshmen [who were required to attend].'

The relative importance of intercollegiate athletics and other college affairs, in the minds of students, is indicated by student publications.

There is no more tangible scale for measuring the interests of college youth than the papers which they edit for their own satisfaction, unrestrained by the faculty.

Let us take two of the worthiest colleges as examples. The Bowdoin College _Orient_, a weekly publication, is typical. For the first nine weeks of the academic year 1914-15, the _Orient_ gave 450 inches to intercollegiate athletics. For the same period, it devoted six inches to art, ten inches to social service, thirteen inches to music, and twelve inches to debating. Judging from this free expression, the students rate the interests of intercollegiate athletics nearly three times as high as the combined interests of art, music, religion, philosophy, social service, literature, debating, the curriculum, and the faculty. Second in importance to intercollegiate athletics, valued at 450 inches, are dances and fraternities, valued at 78 inches.

Another possible measure of the student's interest is found in _Harvard of Today from an Undergraduate Point of View_, published in 1913 by the Harvard Federation of Territorial Clubs. The book gives to athletics ten pages; to the clubs, six pages; to debating, five lines--and that student activity requires sustained thinking and is most closely correlated with the curriculum. The faculty escapes without mention.

'From an undergraduate point of view' the faculty appears to be an inc.u.mbrance upon the joys of college life.

These publications appear to be fair representatives of their cla.s.s. It is probable, furthermore, that the relative attention given by the student papers to intellectual interests is a criterion of the conversation of students.

Not long ago, I spent some time with the graduate students at an Eastern university. Their conversation at dinner gave no evidence of common intellectual interests. They appeared to talk of little but football games.

On a visit to a Southern state university, I found the women's dormitory in confusion. The matron excused the noise and disorder on the ground that a big football game was pending and it seemed impossible for the girls to think of anything else.

'The big game comes to-morrow?' I asked.

'Oh, no, next week,' she said.

Last spring, at a large university on the Pacific Coast, I met one young woman of the freshman cla.s.s who had already been to thirty-one dances that year. At a state university of the Middle West, I found that the students had decided to have their big football game on Friday instead of Sat.u.r.day, in order to wrench one more day from the loose grip of the curriculum. When the faculty protested, the students painted on the walks, 'Friday is a holiday'--and it was.

Intellectual enthusiasm is rare in American colleges, and is likely to be rarer still if social and athletic affairs continue to overshadow all other interests. Their dominance has given many a college faculty its characteristic att.i.tude in matters of government. They a.s.sume that boys and girls will come to college for anything but studies. They tell new students just how many lectures in each course they may escape. A penalty of unsatisfactory work is the obligation to attend all the meetings on their schedule, and the usual reward for faithful conduct is the privilege of 'cutting' more lectures without a summons from the dean. Always the aim of students appears to be to escape as much as possible of the college life provided by the faculty, in order to indulge in more of the college life provided by themselves. Their inventive powers are marvelous; they bring forth an endless procession of devices for evading the opportunities for the sake of which (according to old-fas.h.i.+oned notions) students seek admission to college.

The complacent acceptance of this condition by college faculties--the pervasive a.s.sumption that students have no genuine intellectual enthusiasm--tends to stagnation. In the realm of thought some appear to have discovered the secret of petrified motion.

The p.r.o.nounced tendencies in higher education aggravate the disease.

Feeble palliatives are resorted to from time to time,--the baseball schedule in one college, after six hours of debate by the faculty, was cut down from twenty-four games to twenty-two,--but the bold and necessary surgeon seldom gets in his good work. When he does operate, he is hung in effigy or elected President of the United States.

Concerning the policy of no intercollegiate games at Clark College, President Sanford says: 'Our experience with this plan has been absolutely satisfactory and no change of policy would be considered.

Doubtless some of the less intellectually serious among the students might like to see intercollegiate sports introduced. It is generally understood that in a three-year college there is not time for such extras.' The faculty appear to be unanimously in favor of no intercollegiate games, since the course at Clark College takes only three years. Intercollegiate contests appear to be ruled out chiefly on the ground that, in a three-year course, students cannot afford to waste time. But why is it worse for a young man to waste parts of three years of his student life than to waste parts of four years of it?

The educational effect of our exaggerated emphasis on intercollegiate athletics is shown in the att.i.tude of alumni. It is difficult to arouse the interest of a large proportion of graduates in anything else. At one of the best of our small colleges, in the Mississippi Valley, I saw a ma.s.sive concrete grandstand. This valiant emulation of the Harvard stadium seemed to me to typify the indifference of alumni to the crying needs of their alma mater. For these graduates who contributed costly concrete seats, to be used by the student body in lieu of exercise, showed no concern over the fact that the college was worrying along with scientific laboratories inferior to those of the majority of modern high schools. 'What could I do?' the president asked. 'They would give the stadium, and they would not give the laboratories.'

IV

There have been numerous attempts to prove that intercollegiate athletics are not detrimental to scholars.h.i.+p by showing that athletes receive higher marks than other students. Such arguments are beside the point. Though we take no account of the weak-kneed indulgence to athletes in inst.i.tutions where winning games is the dominant interest, and of the special coaching in their studies provided for them because they are on the teams, we must take account of the fact that wherever the student body regards playing on intercollegiate teams as the supreme expression of loyalty, the men of greatest physical and mental strength are more likely than the others to go out for the teams, and these are the very men of whom we rightly expect greatest proficiency in scholars.h.i.+p. That they do not as a group show notable leaders.h.i.+p in intellectual activities seems due to the excessive physical training which, at certain seasons, they subst.i.tute for study.

But this is not the main point. A large college might be willing to sacrifice the scholars.h.i.+p of a score of students, if that were all. The chief charge against intercollegiate athletics is their demoralizing effect on the scholars.h.i.+p of the entire inst.i.tution. The weaklings who have not grit enough to stand up on the gridiron and be tackled talk interminably about the latest game and the chances of winning the next one. They spend their hours in cheering the football hero, and their money in betting on him. The man of highest achievement in scholars.h.i.+p they either ignore or condemn with unpleasant epithets.

Further hindrances to scholars.h.i.+p are found in the periodic absences of the teams. It is said that athletes are required to make up the work they miss during their trips, but is not this one of the nave ways whereby faculties deceive themselves? They are faced with this dilemma.

Either the work of a given week in their courses is so substantial, and their own contribution to the work so great, that students cannot possibly miss it, and 'make it up' while meeting the equally great demands of the following week, or else the work of all the students is so easy that the athletes on a week's absence do not miss much. What actually happens, year in and year out, is that the standards of scholars.h.i.+p of the entire inst.i.tution are lowered to meet the exigencies of intercollegiate athletics.