Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1884 — College Athletics. [ARTICLE]

College Athletics.

'•The New York Independent asked the opinion of eminent divines on the subject of athletics as pursued in colleges of the country, and published the 10l lowing: Bishop F-D. Hun ling ton says that nothing can prevent these matches from being an enormous school of bad morals in betting and gambling, and that they cause disorder, waste, prodigality, a carnival of animalism or any of the vulgarities of yice. The Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby says there is neither dignity nor sense in identifying a college faculty with students' games. The moment there are rival clubs in different colleges to contend for mastery the mind is diverted from intellectual study, the classes think more of their Imat race than of their mathematics, and the muscular man under training is the hero of the college. It debases the morals of collegians. Let the games and sports of collegians lie confined to the college,campus among themselves in simple and impromptu style. The Rev. Dr. John Hall thinks that no great evil has yet been done, and in many instances the best students have been the best men on boats and bars. But the chief end in colleges is not in this direction. The Rev. Dr. Nowman Smyth writes that the effects of athletics upon the standards of physical virtue in our colleges should not be underestimat d. Bishop Thomas M. Clark says that while young men are not sent to college in order to become athletes, yet it is well on all accounts that they should become athletic. President Samuel C Bartlett sees one undesirable outgrowth of the present state of the case in a tendency to substitute for the health sports of the many an excessive strain upon the very few. The ReV. Dr. Theodore L. Cuvier protests against the increasing furore for intercollegiate pitched battles, whether with oars, fists or footballs. The Rev. Dr. George Hepworth has a very decided opinion that a college without a gymnasium could hardly commend itself to sensible parents. Henry C. Potter, assistant bishop, observes that the present drift in the direction of recreation and amusement appears to be so strong as to need very little encouragement on the part of college authorities, and a good deal of wise guidance, if not restraint. To get liealthy exercise in the w'ays that are popular at college lias come to be, in many coses, an expensive luxury, costing a good deal more time, money and strength than the end seems to him to warrant. President William W. Patton holds that within the bounds of moderation as to time and expense there is undoubtedly a field for athletic exercise; but a field with the bars down is usually a bad thing. Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe counsels the virtue of moderation.