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Speaking antithetically of Mark Antony's famous funeral
eration, permit me to say that "I came to praise football, not to bury
it."

Athletics in the American colleges are paradoxical. They are the
most severely criticized activity of college life, and they are the most
leved. They are the most rational channel into which to direct the ener-
gies of youth, and they are, when improperly administered, the most danger-
ous and diseased. They are the most vulnerable activity of the American
college life, and they are one of the most vital. Perhaps it is because
we love them that we illtreat and punish them. The inherent Anglo-Saxon
love of conquest and combat in the sports and games endangers the very
object of its love. College students view athletics as an end in them-
selves. College professors steeped in habits of mind-training and hard work
see them largely as misspent effort. Herein are the two extremes in over-

Evaluation, - youth in an overvetentells athletics, and middle age in an

overvaluation of academic training. These two extremes are still far apart.

The problem of the modern administrator is to find a middle grounds

Thirty-five years ago, when intercollegiate football was on trial be-
cause of physical dangers to the participants, the late Theodore Roosevelt,
ex-president of the United States, saved the game for the good that he
thought it possessed. Today, with the game on trial again, this time be=
cause of alleged moral and spiritual dangers, there is need of another great
leader to point the way ahead. The game should be lifted up and out of its
distortions ‘ane its truer plane of inspiration and effectiveness in college
life. In reality there is little of serious issue with athletics in the
colleges themselves. The disease starts from without, - among the men

whose interest is misguided.

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