Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1906 — FOOTBALL IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. [ARTICLE]

FOOTBALL IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Mrs. F. D. Gilman of Goodland Ims gone to Chicago, and, it ia reported, will spend the winter there. It is generally believed that her husband, the fugitive banker, is in Chicago and has been there most of the time since his flight from Goodland. In fact it is reliably reported that he has been seen there several times by old acquaintances. It seems queer that the officers of Newton county have been unable to find and arrest Fred on the numerous indictments pending against him. Stensland, the Chicago banker, who robbed thousands of depositors, was traced clear across the continent and brought back to answer to the charges against him, but Fred Gilman, only 75 miles from the scene of his banking activities, “can’t be found.” Too bad.

The football season of 1900 is now over, and according to the accidents reported in the newspapers there were eleven killed and 117 badly injured in various parts of the country during the two months’ season. This is probably only a small part of the number injured, for studied efforts are made to keep the facts from the papers as much as possible and no doubt numerous deaths which should be charged to the fatality list have been falsely attributed to some other causes for fear of adding to the prejudice against the game. The published list of injured shows that there were injuries to every pad of- the external anatomy except the eye. To what extent the internal organs have been damaged and how- many of the 117 will feel the results of the so-called sport all their lives iti the crippling of their strength and endurance there is no way to tell There are twelve young fellows, it is sad to relate, who have given up their lifes ou the gridiron,

Indiiiiiupolia Newi. In hll seriousness we want to Burliest to public school authorities here hiklelsewhere in Indiana a consideration of the football situation as it now exists. There are very many people who are by no means old fogies who think that e\en in our colleges and great universities too much time is devoted to this sport, and there is too great an absorption in it. For our part we are convinced that the college authorities and the managers of their athletics have not sufficiently considered the influence which the athletic craze has on preparatory schools, ever prone hb they are to ape the colleges Something has been done to cure the evils. There is less campaigning among the preparatory schools to secure promising plsx rs from the sobool teams, and that ia a great gain. Bnt even yet there is a false ideal. Many boys now go to college, not, primarily, to get an education, but to play football. But to oome now to the high school problem. Sit is admitted by all experts that football is a man’s game, and that it ia extremely perilous when engaged in by

mere boye. Practically all the deaths and serious injuries this year have been among school players. Tne game ie safe only when played by carefully trained teams composed of matured players. The great college teams are watched over with the utmost care, and no one is allowed to play who is not known to be fit. Whenever it is shown that a man is not fit he is taken out. Manifestly such care can not he exercised in the case of the school players. And there are other evils, There are many high school boys in this town who, since the beginning of the fall term, have thought of nothing but football. This distraction can not but have drawn them away from their studies and the thought of them. To them the victory on Thanksgiving day has seemed the one object in life worth achieving, A nervous and excited condition has been developed that is most harmful. It sliquld be remembered that many ofTbe boys, both players and nonplayers, are at the critical stage of life, at the most impressionable period, Yet we subject them, not simply to the great perils of the game itself, but to intense and prolonged excitement. Athletic exercises are wholesome when nnder proper restraint, and this may include football, but we cannot imagine wbat the parents and the school authorities are thinking of when they allow these high school teams and their supporters to travel over the country —to go as far from home as Louisville—to play games. This has been recognized as a great evil in our universities. So the big games in New York have been abandoned. The Yale team, for instance, plays few games—only, we believe, those with Harvard, Princeton and West Point—away from the home grounds. Now that the season is over, and with a year before the trouble will begin again, we have abundant time to formulate a policy. Parents are practically helpless. For they know that devotion to football gives their boys a prestige that they could not otherwise enjoy—and here again we see how false the ideal is—and wins for them a popularity that they could gain in no other way. And boys like to be popular. To say that a boy shall not play, therefore, is to make him unhappy, and to deprive him, to a large extent, of the favor oMiis fellow’s. So it is hard to ; say no. We must look, therefore, t > the school authorities to work oat a solution that will bring 'about sane conditions in which athletics may be properly subordi- ' nated. Finally, we would suggest to the school authorities here and every- | where that there are altogether too many outside interests in the high schools. What, with football, baseball, basketball, track athletics, debating societies and fraternities, it is hard to see how much time can be left for study. Certain it is that study must be subordinated to a multitude of things that have no proper place in the high schools. It is being discussed all over the country. In one city the children have appealed to the courts to prevent the dissolution of fraternities. In others, the superintendents are almost afraid to attack these evils lest unpopularity with the students should force them from their positions. The situation is serious, and it is serious everywhere. It is so serious that the State SnperI interrdent has found it necessary to speak officially concerning it.