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Kansas University Weekly.
WITH THE passing of the election was the passing of the political cartoonist. He was a queer piece of mentality, with his fantastic, hysterical imagination, and yet he was no small factor in the contest.
WE ARE glad to see the chess club organize again. Inter-collegiate chess tournaments are common in the east, and the game is worthy of much more attention than it has received here of late.
DR. WATSON (Ian McLaren) has been delivering a course of lectures at Yale, and made some remarks, very flattering to Yale, in comparing that University with Oxford and Cambridge. He commended especially the fewness of the restrictions imposed upon American students, and said that England is fast adopting the elective system so popular here.
THE PRELIMINARY debates at Nebraska have begun. The set of questions was:
First: Resolved that a court should be established for the compulsory arbitration of all difficulties between capital and labor. Second: Resolved, that universal manhood suffrage is true in theory and best in practice for republican government. Third: Resolved, that the United States should own and control the railroads. Fourth: Resolved, that the policy of the United States should be to extend her dominions.
ALTHOUGH we do not like to break in on the festivities now being held at Baker over the acquisition of a new telescope with a five inch aperture, yet in the interests of truth it must be said that this is not the "largest telescope in Kansas." The University telescope is an inch larger in aperture, and when "trained" by the keen eye of Prof. Miller has a range of almost any number of millions of miles. But since the atmosphere at Baker is no longer laden with the smoke of foot-ball contests it may be that they will overcome this disadvantage of size, and be able to count about as many mountains on the moon as Prof. Miller can.
No words of ours are necessary to express the deep regret which is felt by every member of the University for the fatal accident at last Saturday's game. More expressive than words could be were the anxious faces of those who filled the Eldridge House corridors during the evening of that sad day. The few who knew that services would be held were present at them on Sunday afternoon to express as best they could the feeling of sorrow that filled their hearts. Since that time everyone has repeated many times to himself or another the sad and sadly futile words "too bad." It will be doubly sad if the lesson which this young man's death has set before us is allowed to go unlearned. It is useless to say that football was not at least indirectly the cause of this death. Possibly the ideal football would never result in accident of any kind, but the fact remains that football as it is now played was the cause and the only cause of the loss of a life. Football as it is now played may, in many colleges, be engaged in by a player at his own option, whether he be in condition or not, and this license is what led to a death. Rather than allow this danger to exist it would be better to abolish the game entirely. Kansas University has taken a step toward avoiding the danger by having medical examination of the team, but so long as we consent to play with teams which have not done even this much, are we not responsible for whatever happens? This much reform then is necessary. We must not only inforce it ourselves but we must demand the same of others. There are probably other points of the game that might be modified in the interests of safety. But supposing that we attain the point of perfection, the ideal game, we are still not safe; there will remain our opponents who have not reached it.
If, however, all the teams in the league would adopt the needed reforms, the situation would be considerably improved. Some such united action in this direction is the least that can be done, and it must be done if football is to maintain its popularity or even its existence as a legitimate sport.