Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1912 — PRAISE FOR BASEBALL [ARTICLE]

PRAISE FOR BASEBALL

University of Nebraska Pedagogue Lauds National Game. Professional Diamond Pastime Only One That Appeals to Prof. George Howard—“ Rooting” la Mental Perversion. Professional baseball carries off the palm as king of sports, a chief agent of American democracy, and a moral uplifter, according to the decision Btated by Prof. George Elliot Howard, the University of Nebraska authority, in an article in the American Journal of Sociology, /published at the University of Chicago. The educator gives the pastime a clean bill of health, ahead of the recreations indulged in by the colleges of the land. Prof. Howard makes a vigorus attack upon intercollegiate athletes, declaring them an unmixed evil, and recommending that they be abandoned. He declares that college athletics spectacles lower the moral tone of the spectator’s emotions, destroy the most important business of the Institutions and (hreaten to bring on other evils more serious. "Under existing conditions,” he declares, “the spectator crowd at an Intercollegiate football contest fosters ideals much lower than those 'suggested by a game of professional baseball.” In handing the glory to baseball and criticizing other sports, Prof. Howard writes: “Psychologically, for instance, the great American game of baseball is a powerful democratic agent. Vast cfowds of both sexes and of alTages, persons of every economic, social, religious or intellectual dlans touch, shoulders. They shout, thrill and gesture In sympathy. They are just human beings, with the differentials of rank or vocation laid aside. “The chief menace to the general use of recreation activities comes from the extraordinary vogue of college athletic spectators. The primary business of the Btudent is, or ought to be, to Btudy. Naturally, he is inactive during a third or more of the day. There' Is plenty of time left for restful recreative exercise if it be made use of. But the student cannot keep his bodily and mental energy up to the mark by exercising vicariously. The vl- • carious play qf the team, however fascinating, does not exercise the spectator’s muscles. “It is Imperative that college authorities recognize the function of recreation. At whatever cost for facilities, every student should be physically as well as mentally educated, and the most efficient mental, even moral, education depends on physical education. Moreover, play for all is the best form of educational recreation. "A similar example of mental perversion, an absurd and immoral, custom tenaciously held fast In mob mind, has its genesis In the partisan zeal of athletic spectator crowds. I refer to the practice of organized cheering known in colege ‘argot’ as ‘rooting.’ From every aspect it is bad. Morally It stands on the level of the •toe hold,’ the card trick, the stuffed ballot box, tainted news of the campaign canard and, like the canard. It is apt to prove a ’boomerang.’ ”